Is Benzinga [2]:

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

Chetsford (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3 Benzinga is a DBA of Accretive Capital LLC. The site presents itself as a market intel firm a la Bloomberg; it appears to be a combination of original content about U.S. business produced by India-based staff writers [3], press release distribution, sponsored content, syndicated articles, and "contributors" (a la WP:FORBESCON).
  
  • The site says it sells sponsored content but I can't find any examples of such content, leading me to suspect it's unlabeled.
  • At least one of the "contributors" is also a public relations practitioner (see: [4] and [5]) and the column in question gives very strong sponsored content vibes, though there's no disclaimer.
  • When I run "according to Benzinga" and "Benzinga reported" through Google News, I can find nothing other than articles on Benzinga itself.
  • At the bottom of the website it carries the disclaimer "Opinions expressed here are solely the author’s and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by reviewers." which seems to indicate there's no gatekeeping process.
  • I can find no ethics statement or corrections policy.
    

In 2020 [6], Benzinga was sued by GEICO who alleged misappropriation of the GEICO trademark on Benzinga. The case was resolved with a consent decree by which Benzinga agreed not to make "false statements of fact, orally or in writing, about GEICO". (Government Employees Insurance Company v. Accretive Capital LLC, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland). This appeared to relate to a sponsored content or advertising block, as opposed to editorial content. In October [7], it settled a lawsuit alleging it was mass sending spammy text messages (Nichols v. Accretive Capital LLC, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan). Chetsford (talk) Chetsford (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3 as per Chetsford and the 2019 RS discussion mentioned below. Coeusin (talk) 14:36, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 as per Chetsford. Doesn’t seem too dissimilar to FORBESCON. The Kip ^(contribs) 16:33, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3. As a website, you can't disclaim responsibility for what you publish and still be utilized as a source on Wikipedia. The comparison with WP:FORBESCON is accurate. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 13:35, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 - as usual, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. I’d tend to evaluate depending on what the proposed edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, and think no evaluation without that can be really valid except option2. In this case, I don't see a reason to make any general conclusion -- there doesn't seem to be a lot of RSN discussions to summarize or adjudicate and of the two shown, one of them was stating "reliable for financial/business news" and another that it depends on if it is an article they wrote, a press release, or is a guest contribution. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:09, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 - From my observations, it's more commonly used for regurgitating corporate hype and PR rather than as a legitimate source of news or expert analysis. Grayfell (talk) 23:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Benzinga has twice been discussed at RSN ([8] and [9]) and is now the locus of a question (by me) at Philip S. Low (Canadian). It's used frequently as a source in company articles across the project, typically (it seems) to support extraordinary claims and incredible achievements of the companies. Chetsford (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From what I read at WP:CNET, CNet is no longer a reliable source it once was. Does this apply to YouTube videos (and other videos) made by CNet? George Ho (talk) 23:03, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube is just a host that organisation can publish on, the reliability of any YouTube video is the same as anything else published by that organisation. So the reliability of CNET's YouTube videos are no different from their website. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:57, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CNET has been sold by Red Ventures (the whole reason it was declared unreliable in the first place) and is now owned by Ziff Davis, who owns generally reliable publications like IGN. I therefore think its reliability should be reassessed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:09, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It should be reassessed. Also C|NET goes back to the 1990s, before problems noted existed. -- GreenC 07:36, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I was reading the RSP entry that thought crossed my mind. Given the changes over the years the entry should be updated. I think there was some AI concerns but their AI use policy[10] looks good now. I'd support changing it to "Additional considerations" and noting the period that caused concern. Interestingly the close[11] of the prior RFC details the different periods, but they weren't noted on the RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hope it's adjusted, before someone finds the hammer and sees nails everywhere causing a lot of damage. -- GreenC 22:55, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Any interested editors can edit it, it's nothing special - normal editing rules apply. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:29, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't it kind of crap under RV too? jp×g🗯️ 03:43, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• One thing that crosses my mind is that the reason their recent stuff (after their acquisition by Red Ventures in 2020) is considered unreliable is because of the use of AI to generate articles. Does this extend to video? --Aquillion (talk) 19:23, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  See the link in my comment, they seems to have curtailed their use of AI to generate content. I wouldn't trust that they didn't generate video scripts with AI under Red Ventures. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:18, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a timeline of CNET's ownership:

• 1992 to June 2008: CNET Networks (formerly known as CNET, Inc.)
• June 2008 to October 2020: CBS Interactive
• October 2020 to October 2024: Red Ventures
• October 2024 to present: Ziff Davis

The March 2024 RfC on Red Ventures determined that "the online properties of Red Ventures are generally unreliable", building upon a highly-attended February 2023 discussion. which is the sole basis of These discussions are why CNET is currently being listed as generally unreliable in its perennial sources list entry. Because CNET has ceased being an online property of Red Ventures as of 1 October 2024, the "generally unreliable" designation from that RfC should not apply to any CNET articles published since that date, but the February 2023 discussion still currently applies.

In its current incarnation, CNET's highest-quality content is its Cover Stories, which are originally reported feature stories with in-depth research (e.g. "Inside the Rise of 7,000 Starlink Satellites – and Their Inevitable Downfall"). CNET's full-length technology reviews (e.g. pre–October 2024 link removed) and technology reporting (e.g. "This Company Got a Copyright for an Image Made Entirely With AI. Here's How") seem to be of similar quality to other mainstream tech news sites, and I consider this content on CNET generally reliable. I do not see any evidence of LLMs being used to generate these articles.

On the other hand, CNET's Deals are sponsored content and should be considered generally unreliable just like sponsored content from other online publications. CNET also publishes a large number of product comparison pages in the style of Wirecutter, such as "Best Electric Toothbrushes of 2025" and "Best Home Equity Loan Rates for February 2025", with affiliate links to each listed product. I consider these product comparison pages sponsored content (and therefore generally unreliable), and I believe there should be a broader discussion about affiliate-sponsored product review sites, whether they are part of a larger publication (e.g. The New York Times's Wirecutter) or not (e.g. Nexstar Media Group's BestReviews).

A visit of CNET's home page shows that at least half of the content linked from CNET's home page is unacceptable sponsored content, or articles that are otherwise unsuitable for Wikipedia (e.g. "Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Sunday, Feb. 16"). Despite CNET having some high-quality articles, with such a high proportion of unusable content, I believe CNET (October 2024 – present) should be designated as "additional considerations apply".

ZDnet should also be re-evaluated, as it was reacquired by Ziff Davis in August 2024 and is also no longer a Red Ventures property. — Newslinger talk 06:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC) Correct discussion history. Strike favorable assessment of reviews, which are difficult to distinguish from sponsored content. — Newslinger talk 08:50, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The CNET entries on RSP were not up-to-date at the time of my previous comment. The February 2023 discussion was incorrectly listed as a request for comment, but was actually a standard discussion that was formally closed without ever having the {{rfc}} tag applied. I've re-designated it as a standard discussion in the CNET entires. Also, I've added the March 2024 RfC on Red Ventures, which takes precedence over the February 2023 discussion for the October 2020 – October 2022 period, which I have updated to the generally unreliable designation. The CNET entries now reflect the status quo before the active RfC below. — Newslinger talk 08:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is the reliability of CNET, following its purchase by Ziff Davis in October 2024:

• 1. Reliable
• 2. Additional considerations apply
• 3. Generally unreliable

Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2, per my comments in the above section. CNET's content quality is a mixed bag, and varies greatly depending on the topic and format. From CNET's RSS feeds, here are the 10 most recently published CNET articles as of right now:
  1. "Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Monday, Feb. 17": No comment on reliability. Generally undue.
  2. "Best Teeth Whitening Kits in 2025": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. The article's biomedical claims are also unusable due to CNET being a popular press source. This product comparison page lacks an original publication date, and is repeatedly updated (see the "Article updated" date) to feature new products, most of which are individually non-notable. The reviews on the page are short blurbs that can be summarized from the product's store listing, and do not indicate that the authors have ever used the products. The page contains a large number of affiliate links that direct readers to buy the products at various retailers.
  3. "Best Nanny Cams for 2025": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. However, CNET did actually test two of the five products on the list. The tested products each have a "Read full review" link which leads to a review article that should be evaluated separately.
  4. "Best Roku TV for 2025": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. Two of the three products have "Read full review" links.
  5. "I Wasn't Disappointed After Trying HelloFresh's New Time-Saving Menu Options": Marginally reliable at best. Article is promotionally toned in a way that makes me doubt its authenticity. Contains only one affiliate link, which is acceptable.
  6. "Best Workout Apps for 2025": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. No detailed reviews linked.
  7. "Best Apple iPhone SE Cases for 2025": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. No detailed reviews linked.
  8. "Best Kitchen Faucets for 2025": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. No detailed reviews linked.
  9. "Best Internet Providers in Gainesville, Georgia": Generally unreliable as sponsored content. This product comparison page has a different format than the previous ones. Most of the listed internet providers have separate reviews (e.g. "AT&T Internet Review: Plans, Pricing, Speed and Availability"), but it is concerning that these reviews only have "Article updated" dates while lacking original publication dates.
  10. "Best Internet Providers in Durham, North Carolina": Generally unreliable as sponsored content.

• (summoned by bot) Option 2 per Newslinger. A historical news site resorting to blatant ad slop as its main venture (no pun intended) is very dissapointing. 🌙Eclipse (she/they/it/other neos • talk • edits) 12:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  (This vote self-replaced the user's own previous vote. —George Ho (talk) 02:04, 18 February 2025 (UTC))[reply]

• Option 2 is the case for every source on the planet including this one (invited by the bot). Anything else is a false overgeneralization. North8000 (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3. Nothing seems to have changed: CNET still appears to be outright unreliable. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Absent any further information, I would tend towards the status quo. As far as I am aware, CNET is a reliable source. If you are able to provide evidence to the contrary, I may !vote that it is unreliable but otherwise a change of ownership (to a company I cannot at a cursory glance conclude is inherently unreliable) is not grounds for declaring a source unreliable. It depends on the content output, not the owner. Note: I have purposefully not yet done a deep-dive on CNET or Ziff Davis as I feel it should be up to those looking to have a source declared unreliable to provide a reasonable justification and I think uninvolved editors should go into discussions like this without preconceptions. I will not be !voting one way or the other until additional context is provided. Adam Black ^{talk • contribs} 02:14, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  See the above discussion for additional context. CNET was originally designated as generally reliable. After a highly-attended February 2023 discussion, CNET was designated as generally reliable for the pre–October 2020 time range, marginally reliable for October 2020 – October 2022, and generally unreliable for November 2022 – present. The March 2024 RfC on Red Ventures forms the current status quo, which designates CNET as generally reliable for pre–October 2020, and generally unreliable for the time period after CNET was acquired by Red Ventures (October 2020 – present). Although Ziff Davis purchased CNET from Red Ventures in October 2024, a discussion from later that month did not have a clear resolution, with some editors preferring to wait before re-evaluating CNET. It has been six months since that discussion, and this RfC is the re-evaluation that we have been waiting for. — Newslinger talk 08:35, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• As the discussion above says, the status quo is that they are not currently reliable (ie. not after their acquisition), mostly due to their use of AI and the damage that that seems to have done to their reputation. --Aquillion (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should we move the Daily Express from "Generally unreliable" on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources to "Deprecated"? Helper201 (talk) 00:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes. As mentioned next to the entry of the Daily Express on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, it shares similarities with the Daily Mail which is deprecated. I see a lot of commonalities between the two and don't see what makes this source better or deserving of "Generally unreliable" rather than "Deprecated". Helper201 (talk) 00:33, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes I hoped they would change after being purchased by Reach PLC, but there's no evidence that they have. They're still the same low quality unreliable tabloid source that they were under Desmond, and there's basically no reason to cite them under any circumstances, warranting deprecation similar to other British tabloids like the Daily Mail and The Sun. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  As an addendium, The Express has a history of openly promoting conspiracy theories [12] [13] [14][15] [16] Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:18, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes per Hemiauchenia. - Amigao (talk) 03:37, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, as it is another British tabloid more interested in ill-informed rants than reporting. Slatersteven (talk) 09:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes If anything, Daily Express is even more unreliable than Daily Mail. Jeppiz (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes To be honest, you could deprecate every single one of the national papers owned by Reach PLC and nothing of value would be lost. Black Kite (talk) 19:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Not entirely unless further evidence is presented. The broadsheet newspaper owned by Sir Arthur Pearson until 1916 should not at this time be deprecated, or even listed as generally unreliable. No evidence has ever been presented at RSP that it was not reliable. The pre-1917 newspaper is not a perennial source either. I am under the impression that the Express had, for example, one of only five British journalists allowed on the Western Front, so its coverage is not obviously entirely redundant to other better sources. The 21st century Express, on the other hand, should generally not be used for fringe or controversial topics, or any topic with a political or ideological dimension, or for BLPs. Conversely, harmless British pop culture should not be systematically deleted from this encyclopedia one newspaper at a time. Sports history, for example, is often particularly dependent on newspapers, and we should not be deleting, for example, information about Edwardian footballers because editors simply assume the unreliability of newspapers after doing incomplete superficial research, or project the 21st century into the distant past more than a century ago. James500 (talk) 04:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If a newspaper is going to be cited from 1917, presumably this would be done via newspapers.com or something equivalent, so it wouldn't even trigger the deprecation warning. Almost all web citations to the Daily Express are probably going to be of the Desmond era and beyond. As usual, common sense prevails with regard to source usage. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:37, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Whether use of a source would trigger a deprecation warning is irrelevant, it is the source that is deprecated not the means of accessing that source. Thryduulf (talk) 15:52, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No change. There is insufficient evidence presented that anything has changed to justify changing the designation. The 21st Century paper is far from the highest quality British newspaper but it's also not the lowest quality either (e.g. I've seen no evidence that it is unreliable about it's own past statements in the way the Daily Mail is). Per James500, it is also important to note that the quality of the source has varied significantly over time. Thryduulf (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Bad RfC. If I want to point to one of their Rupert Bear cartoons I'd regard them as the best source. If I wanted to quote what they said, I'd affirm that WP:RS/QUOTE asks for citing. Those are hypotheticals, but hypotheticals are more than what the OP provides, which is absolutely nothing about a currently disputed cite in a Wikipedia article. I don't dignify the question by saying support or oppose, though, because whatever the essay-class WP:RSP page says is up to the editors of that page. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:06, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• No change No evidence has been presented of unreliability. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:38, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  ??? You don't think promoting conspiracy theories is evidence of unreliability? Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:34, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  They said no evidence has been presented, which is true, not that there was no evidence. Thryduulf (talk) 15:51, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No, in addition to being a BADRFC with zero evidence of why we would change.Iljhgtn (talk) 23:03, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Is there a new discussion, disagreement, or change that has caused the need for a new RFC? Or is the Daily Express still being commonly used in a way that wastes editors time? (For reference it's currently used in about 6.5k articles.[17]) Although it doesn't appear that there's ever been a RFC on the Daily Express, so it may certainly be due one. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Normally I'm all ready to go to deprecate a tabloid but I'm not seeing an RfC before here and we really should be basing RSP discussions on disputes that happen on WP rather than just deciding that Now Is The Time. Simonm223 (talk) 12:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Concur with Simon, Daily Express is a garbage rag but given the seeming lack of WP:RFCBEFORE here this might be a bad RFC. The Kip ^(contribs) 23:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with everyone else in this section. The Daily Express is clearly unreliable and I wouldn't be concerned about it being deprecated but I don't understand why this is coming up now or why it matters. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I'd argue it matters due to the number of sources in which it is used (6.5k, as stated above). I have also myself seen it used as a source in many articles over the years to try and support factual claims. Obviously one or a few people such as myself cannot hope to tackle a backlog of thousands of pages in which it is used and the potential for this to increase in the future. Listing it as "Deprecated" would at least help prevent future usage of it. Helper201 (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• So far, I see no one else opposing the proposal to this date. Nonetheless, the discussion isn't listed in WP:CENT. Shall the source be "deprecated" right away then? George Ho (talk) 19:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • George Ho I think we should go with listing it as deprecated (note, I would need someone else to do this as I'm not confident I'd be able to do it correctly), however if there is also a consensus for it to go to CENT I'm fine with that too. Helper201 (talk) 09:36, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Requested at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested. George Ho (talk) 13:54, 4 March 2025 (UTC); struck, 18:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Aren't we jumping the gun a bit here? The discussion is full of people concerned the RfC lacks an RfC before. Simonm223 (talk) 14:12, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    This discussion has died down AFAICS. If you feel like voting, then please don't hesitate. If you vote "oppose", then I might consider withdrawing the request over there. Even then, I might request at WP:CR, but I dunno whether they'll respond ASAP there. George Ho (talk) 19:32, 4 March 2025 (UTC); edited, 18:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @George Ho There's a distinctive difference between opposing a deprecation and thinking the RfC for deprecation shouldn't have happened in the first place. The Kip ^(contribs) 23:06, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    George, I could remove all those citations in several days (if I did nothing else). I would need a mandate to do it, though. By the way, what discussion? Most of the comments in this RfC look like polling. James500 (talk) 04:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    what discussion? Well, until your vote, this RFC discussion. George Ho (talk) 05:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC); struck, 18:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Withdrew my request there after seeing newer votes just now. George Ho (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the 2019 RfC which deprecatated The Sun, there was no build up at all Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_254#RfC:_The_Sun. Has the mood shifted at RSN against deprecating newspapers? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:36, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The mood has certainly shifted against deprecating newspapers without evidence being presented of a need to deprecate. Thryduulf (talk) 01:07, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Cass Review is a comprehensive review commissioned by the National Health Service in the area of transgender medicine. In my view, that puts it near the top of WP:MEDRS.

However, many editors in the transgender topic area believe it promotes misinformation.[18] For instance, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist argues that:

Cass repeatedly endorses the desistance myth, supports a form of treatment, gender exploratory therapy, which is a form of conversion therapy, pathologizes trans people such as by labelling trans kids "gender questioning" despite them not actually questioning their gender, proposes that social transition only be allowed with medical guidance (which is bullshit as social transition is a human right), and more.

Simonm223 argues:

Anti-trans medical misinformation and worse have been running rampant in the topic area. This is just an attempt to clean up misinformation from providers of such like SEGM and Hilary Cass

Void if removed consistently argues the opposite stance, that this is just an attempt to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS as it excludes sources because they advocate opinions that argue against a transgender point of view.

I received advice from someone once telling me a good way to resolve disputes is by breaking them into smaller ones, so I'm starting this thread to discuss whether the Cass Review is reliable as this has come up in multiple discussions at WP:FTN. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Unreliable the Cass Review is bad science for all the reasons Chess attributed to YFNS. It is also bad medicine because its recommendations ignored how denial of services to trans youth led to an increase in suicide rates. [19] It isn't just an unreliable medical report, it is an actively harmful one that has almost certainly led to preventable deaths. Simonm223 (talk) 23:28, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Simonm223: The source you link says that denial of services did not lead to a significant increase in suicide rates. gnu57 23:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I misread the article. Somewhat embarrassing but I know I have read sources that did demonstrate the suicide rate increase. Will look later today. Simonm223 (talk) 12:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Ok here is the article I read before: [20] . Before 2020, only one suicide among transgender youth on the NHS waiting list occurred in the previous seven years. Even that is one too many. But following the 2020 court ruling, the number of suicides among transgender youth on the NHS waiting list suddenly exploded to from one (in seven years) to 16 (in less than three years). Simonm223 (talk) 15:38, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, this is the activist misinformation originating with the Good Law Project that prompted the government to commission a leading authority on suicide to conduct an independent report, which found it to be false and dangerous. Best not to spread it. Void if removed (talk) 17:53, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Simonm223. It's been more than a week. Now that you know this is misinformation, will you please strike it? Having the top spot on an RfC occupied by an inflammatory false claim bodes ill for the rest of the discussion. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:10, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I struck the part related to the source that I screwed up. Apologies, I forgot about this. I've been preoccupied. Simonm223 (talk) 11:09, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I know that people like to come to this Noticeboard and ask about the general reliability of a source, but the Noticeboard also clearly states "ask about reliability of sources in context! ... Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports." Can you give a couple of examples of specific articles / specific content where an editor tried using the Cass Report as a source for specific content, and editors challenged it as not being a reliable source for that specific content? For example, I just searched for "Cass Review" in the history of the Conversion therapy article (since one of your quotes refers to conversion therapy), and couldn't find an example of anyone attempting to source anything in that article to the Cass Review. The Puberty blocker article cites it a few times, but that would be a counterexample to assuming that it's not a reliable source for anything. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The context is whether or not the Cass Review counts for WP:DUE weight when discussing WP:Fringe theories at WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:45, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You presumably know that that's not what's meant by WP:RSCONTEXT. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  OK. I still think if there's arguments on the Cass Review going back to January of 2024[21] that boil down to whether the Cass Review is WP:MEDRS for the purpose of fringe theories, it's better to get that resolved. Heck, I've cited the Cass Review in the WP:TELEGRAPH RfC last year.[22] If we have a WP:RSN thread saying the Cass Review is unreliable, I will stop citing it in discussions and expect others to do the same. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:08, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  For example, I just searched for "Cass Review" in the history of the Conversion therapy article

  Really? There are multiple discussions about this on talk, which prompted YFNS' original accusations it was FRINGE over a year ago. Void if removed (talk) 09:41, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, really. My claim was not about Talk page discussions, which is why I said "Conversion therapy article," linking to the article. Despite being asked, Chess is unwilling to provide examples of someone adding content to an article and sourcing that content to the Cass Review, and another editor removing it from the article on the basis that the Review is not a reliable source for that article content. Can you provide such examples, or is all of this only about Talk page discussions? FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This is a strange standard to apply. GENSEX is a contentious topic and it is pretty common (certainly on my part, as I'm usually in the minority) to raise a topic on talk first, seek consensus and attempt to find compromise, before applying changes. That's just sensible editing. As you can see from the discussion, there was vehement argument against inclusion, which I obviously disagree with, but that's all there is to it.

  Making changes against consensus on a CTOP is the sort of tendentious behaviour that is a swift path to a topic ban. The right thing to do in that situation is drop it, not pigheadedly press ahead and add content, only to be reverted - especially when YFNS then took the discussion onto the FRINGE board, claiming the source itself is espousing a FRINGE POV.

  The "exploratory therapy" material added by YFNS to the Conversion Therapy article around a year ago is basically ground zero for these discussions. Its all there on talk.

  But if you want only narrow examples of article reversions, here's one for starters. YFNS insists that "desistance is a myth", and removed a 37% persistence figure sourced to the Cass Review, which I had added as a secondary source for this figure from Steensma et al (2013). YFNS justification included direct attacks on its reliablity, as well as bringing up the American College of Paediatricians for some reason. Void if removed (talk) 15:40, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think it's a strange standard. I seldom edit GENSEX articles, but I frequently edit other CTOP articles, and I don't start with a discussion on the Talk page. I attend to the actual restrictions for a given page (e.g., does the page have a "consensus required" or "enforced BRD" notice? is there a WP:0RR or 1RR rule to prevent edit warring?), and I attend to whether my edit is consistent with policy (e.g., supported by an RS). I just looked at the edit notice for the Conversion therapy article and at the top of its talk page, and although it's identified as a CTOP article, there are no "consensus required" or "enforced BRD" notices for that article. I'm not going to invest time in reading the talk page discussions; it's sufficient to note that there is no FAQ for that article referring to an RfC constraining people from appropriately using the Cass Review as a source on that page (and again: appropriate use depends on things such as whether it's an RS for the specific text introduced into the article). And yes, I do think introducing text that you believe is consistent with policies (e.g., is DUE, is sourced to an RS) and then discussing it if someone challenges the edit is just as appropriate as starting with a discussion. I'm not aware of any policy that requires talk page discussion first, but if you know of such a policy, please point it out to me so that I can read what it says. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:35, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:CONSENSUS actually suggests that edit first is the correct path, and then through discussion if there is disagreement. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:40, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @FactOrOpinion let me let you in on something that may come as a surprise. I am not a popular editor. Shock, I know. I edit in GENSEX and (IMO) I argue in the best possible faith for a neutral position, and in doing so I come up against a whole lot of resistance and outright hostility because this is not a popular thing to do. I've been dragged through AE, and there are any number of editors and admins that would like to see me banned I am sure.

  So forgive me if I have little patience for being lectured on what policy is, or what edits you think I "should" have just gone ahead and done a year ago.

  I work the way I work - conservatively, and invariably on talk first - because anything else would be futile and short-lived, and I have found it to be the safest and sanest way for me personally, avoiding inflaming edit wars on the articles themselves as far as possible. If I cannot make a case on talk, there's no point. You don't have to work that way, but that is how I work, on these articles, knowing that I am in a minority.

  This is all a massive derailment. The attempt to edit the page is all on talk. You can read the talk discussion. You can see the objections and all the arguments. If you have any comment to make, make it about that talk discussion, but don't pretend no attempt was made when it is all documented there, in painful, tedious detail. Void if removed (talk) 17:09, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm sorry to hear that you've been taken to AE. To clarify: when I wrote "I do think introducing text that you believe is consistent with policies ...," "you" was also meant in the sense of "one," not just you personally. I did not "lecture" or "pretend no attempt was made." You said "This is a strange standard to apply," and I explained why I don't think it's a strange standard to apply. You, of course, are free to edit more conservatively if you want. It actually sounds to me like your concern is less about WP:RS and more about WP:NPOV — "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Up to you whether you want to raise that at the NPOVN. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Poorly defined question - the Cass Review's commissioned reviews are WP:MEDRS, the Cass's self-published reports are not and make multiple WP:FRINGE claims

1. You trimmed my quote which began with See Cass Review#Criticisms - Cass repeatedly... - you should acknowledge that per our own article, the Cass Review has been widely criticized for a range of reasons. That was not my opinion, but a summary of how we already cover it.
2. This question is incredibly vague. What part of the Cass Review? Reliable for what? (As this page says, Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!)
   • The Review commissioned systematic reviews which most people concur are broadly reliable (hell, I've cited some in articles before) The Review released 2 self-published reports, which were written by Cass and an anonymous team, received no peer review, and peer reviewed literature and WP:MEDORGs have been heavily critical of (including for making claims not backed up by the systematic reviews it commisioned).
   • Again, reliable for what? Consensus has been already that there are claims the Cass Review is plainly not reliable for. For example, Void if Removed tried to add into wikivoice that the majority of transgender children "desist" (AKA, suddenly stop desiring to transition during puberty, a piece of misinformation called the Desistance myth) citing Cass [23] - Cass said this based on a single 2013 paper (Steensma et al., 2013), whose own author noted multiple caveats to that finding in that paper, and in 2018 noted this was based on outdated and overly broad diagnostic criteria that conflated gender dysphoria with gender nonconformity of any kind [24], citing that 2013 paper and also the Endocrine Society's statement to the same effect.[25] We have a systematic review (aka, top tier WP:MEDRS) in 2022 calling BS on the claim (which Cass conveniently completely ignored)[26], and Cass Review#Desistance noting multiple MEDRS have critiqued Cass for this claim.
3. WP:MEDRS states Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers, and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies - The Cass Review's reports are none of these things. Not a review article, not a book (and besides, Cass was explicitly chosen for not being an expert in trans healthcare), it is not a guideline, or a position statement, even ignoring the fact that the review team is not a national or international expert body. The Cass Review's reports are not WP:MEDRS.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For example, Void if Removed tried to add into wikivoice

This is a gross misrepresentation and you should strike it. I tried to re-add well-sourced, longstanding consensus material (that had been there in some form for years) with additional citations after you removed it. You removed sourced material, and then created a page that describes it as a myth, and now use that page as justification for excluding the contrary sources in the first place.

And you continue here your misrepresentation of the section in question, as I pointed out to you last year. Void if removed (talk) 09:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly didn't one of the systematic reviews research into persistence rates and find nothing. If so the fact that the report ignored it's own review seems quite damning. LunaHasArrived (talk) 12:52, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page consennsus was to remove it and focus on better summarizing better quality sources such as the 2022 systemic review of desistance literature.[27] In that edit, you reinstate a 2019 narrative review (not as strong as systematic) and remove sourced issues the review noted such as the claim being based on studies where conversion therapy was performed.[28] You then toss in a superflous reference to Cass to try and launder weak primary sources over the systematic review noting just how problematic that claim is. [29] Then, bizarrely, you try and cite the Cass Review glossary for the definition of gender dysphoria to override what the APA, who created the diagnosis, said about it.[30]

As Luna points out, and as I noted in my reply to your comment[31], the Cass Review commissioned a review to look into desistance, which did not report a persistence rate (or if it did, found it about 92% as opposed to 30%) and Cass cites her desistance statistic from a 2013 paper whose author has for years heavily caveated that data in a way that Cass completely ignored.

The article transgender health care misinformation is a good article. The reason it says the desistance myth is misinformation is because we have dozens of RS saying so. You restarted the debate there making the same disproven talking points and bludgeoned the multiple editors saying you were wrong.[32] Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:42, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What you've done here:

• Void if Removed tried to add into wikivoice that the majority of transgender children "desist" (AKA, suddenly stop desiring to transition during puberty, a piece of misinformation called the Desistance myth)

Is present this exchange as if I, out of the blue, added a load of obviously contentious material. This is a direct accusation that I am knowingly spreading misinformation.

I did not. What I did was argue for retaining the existing, well-sourced consensus material, which you removed, and which you subsequently started presenting as a "myth" on a page you created two months later.

So I ask again that you strike this personal attack and gross misrepresentation of the chain of events.

Also, this:

we have dozens of RS saying so.

Is an exaggeration. Your relevant citations for that section are:

• A sociology paper by Natacha Kennedy (one of the critics of the Cass Review, not MEDRS)
• Two papers by McNamara, Allsott et al (authors of the Yale amicus brief attacking the Cass Review, one social science, the other law, neither are MEDRS)
• An SPLC report (definitely not MEDRS, partisan, and co-authored by one of the authors of one of the McNamara/Allsott papers)
• A systematic review that says the best quantitative estimate of desistance is 83%, which is only there on the page because I pointed out you had left out this highly relevant figure, which kind of undermines the whole idea it is a "myth".

The discussion on talk is an absolute textbook example of you and other editors refusing to cite the Cass Review's perspective on desistance, because you think it is unreliable, because you think desistance is a "myth", therefore the Cass Review is unreliable. This is circular.

The right way to do this is to present all significant points of view neutrally, but what you continually do is argue the Cass Review is wrong and exclude it. Void if removed (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You tried to reinstate content that talk had already agreed to remove. You then tried to add a citation to the Cass Review that cherry picked a single study (which the systematic review already discussed and noted was severely flawed).

I don't think you're knowingly spreading misinformation. I truly believe you edit in the best of faith and believe the things you write. I will say I deeply wish you were more knowledgeable about trans healthcare and the history of it. Like with this whole argument, you seem to fail to grasp the basic concept that studies that didn't track trans identity or dsm-5 gender dysphoria are not actually predictive of dsm-5 gender dysphoria or trans identity, which the literature has noted for years.

The RS on the article are only a subset of the literature calling it misinformation, or noting it's flawed.

The Cass Reviews perspective on desistance was not cited because higher quality sources disagree, the author of the single study Cass cited for her claim disagrees, Cass neglected to mention several issues with the claim sources like the Endocrine Society have pointed out nearly a decade ago, and RS and MEDORGs have specifically called out the Cass Reviews claims on desistance as bullshit. Cass correctly identified the issues with the pre-2000s literature, then ignored all criticism of the post 2000s lit and presented it as settled.

A systematic review that says the best quantitative estimate of desistance is 83% - it absolutely did not...

The systematic review said Quantitative studies were all poor quality, with 83% of 251 participants reported as desisting. Thirty definitions of desistance were found, and From all of these collections of studies emerged the commonly used statistic stating that ∼80% of TGE youth will desist after puberty, a statistic that has been critiqued by other works based on poor methodologic quality, the evolving understanding of gender and probable misclassification of nonbinary individuals, and the practice of attempting to dissuade youth from identifying as transgender in some of these studies and concludes The definitions of desistance, while diverse, were all used to say that TGE children who desist will identify as cisgender after puberty, a concept based on biased research from the 1960s to 1980s and poor-quality research in the 2000s. Therefore, desistance is suggested to be removed from clinical and research discourse

The myth is not that these studies existed, or had these findings. The myth is that based on these old studies that neither tracked 1) DSM-5 GD diagnoses or 2) trans identification (and often included conversion therapy) one can confidently claim that the data shows the majority of trans kids / those diagnosed with GD "desist". Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I want to get into a rancorous discussion I care little about, but the Cass Review is not WP:SPS as that policy is intended, and saying it is immediately weakens your argument.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:09, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, there is no agreement about what WP:SPS is intended to mean, as is clear from recent RfCs, such as this one. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't comparing the same thing. As Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist notes above, what is being discussed at FTN are the separate self-published opinion parts with no review or oversight that make several claims that discussion at FTN is agreeing are FRINGE stances. You seem to be trying to avoid that resulting consensus by coming here and using a misleading summary of the subject at hand. Silverseren^C 23:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As an uninvolved and trans editor can I just say it would be nice to not have POINTY things like this brought up to remind me every time I check out the dashboard that I am up for debate on this website Sock-the-guy (talk) 23:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No, it's not. It ought to be treated as anything else directly published by a government, ie. it might at best be a WP:PRIMARY source for the official positions taken by the government, but it wasn't published via any form of reputable fact-checking, so it isn't even a primary RS. Even when cited via a secondary source, it definitely shouldn't be used for anything but the attributed positions and opinions of the British government. This makes it mostly useless for the things people would want to cite it for; in the vast majority of circumstances it should only be cited via a secondary source, and even then only in places discussion the political controversy, never the medical or scientific questions involved. Your question focused on what it says, but that's not really the issue - the issue is that it was not published by a source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. There are ofc cases where a government-funded and notionally government-controlled source has enough editorial independence and a strong enough reputation to be a WP:RS, but that doesn't apply here. --Aquillion (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Aquillion: Regarding your comment: “Even when cited via a secondary source, it definitely shouldn't be used for anything but the attributed positions and opinions of the British government.” Which British government? The review was not done by ‘the British government’, it was done by Dr Cass. And the government has changed since the Review was commissioned and published. Your comment makes no sense. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:08, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS isn't (generally) about who wrote something, it's about the publisher - about whether the publisher has proper editorial controls and a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The publisher in this case is the British government, which doesn't lend the report any reliability. This is standard for how we handle government reports. The fact that there was an election since then doesn't change that, obviously. If you want to argue that it could somehow be a RS, you'd have to explain what editorial controls it went through, and demonstrate that the publisher had the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that RS requires. --Aquillion (talk) 13:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Cass Review was not published by the government – it is published by the Review. [33] Sweet6970 (talk) 15:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Cass Review was published under auspices of the NHS, and it's contents is owned by the UK government. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:37, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not sure you understand what "published" means on Wikipedia. The report was commissioned by the NHS, an arm of the British government; Cass herself was selected by the government to head it, and therefore was working at their behest. Anything they publish derives whatever reliability it might have through that chain - from the NHS, and through that from the British government - which makes them obviously unusable for statements of fact. This is not unusual or strange in any way; governments often such commission such reports, none of which are ever reliable sources for anything remotely controversial or contentious due to the obvious lack of independence such reports have from the policies of the government that established them. As I mentioned, there are occasional exceptions, but only for long-standing organizations with established reputations for independence, fact-checking and accuracy, which "The Report" clearly lacks; the idea that a government could commission a report, assign whoever they please to produce it, then say "trust us, it's independent of us" is obviously absurd and would allow a government to turn anything it pleased into facts. A report gets its reliability not from having a fancy website or calling itself "The Report" in big capital letters, but by being published through a publisher with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. How could you possibly assert that a group the government established specifically to produce a single report could meet that standard? --Aquillion (talk) 17:04, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Much like reports by US governmental institutions it use should be attributed. Reliable yes, but only with attribution. As to whether it's due inclusion that's not a reliability question but one of NPOV. I would suggest not splitting the discussion that is already occurring on WP:FTN. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• It's complicated - The underlying reviews are generally high-quality WP:MEDRS sources but have received some criticism by other WP:MEDRS sources and so some attempt should be made to situate them in the context of the rest of the field instead of relying solely on them for controversial claims. The report is a government report that has received quite a lot of criticism by other sources including some WP:MEDORGs. So its reliability is much more complicated and context-driven than most other sources: there are some cases where it summarizes the underlying reviews in a straightforward way (and there it's clearly reliable), there are cases where it claims to be based on the reviews but goes further or is more opinionated than them, and there are cases where it's not directly based on the reviews at all (and often those are the most controversial bits). It should be treated like any other government report written by experts but which has also been the target of significant criticism by experts, which is to say, it's complicated.

If I had to give these a color rating I'd say the reviews are WP:GREL but with the caveats listed above, and the report is WP:MREL: it is sometimes reliable for some claims but significant skepticism is warranted. Loki (talk) 01:15, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was interested to see if the Cass review had an error corrections process (like one would usually see in a modern paper in a journal) and found this page where a number of changes (both documented and undocumented) have been made. Not sure where this lies (and how often something like this would be done) but it is something to note. LunaHasArrived (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

excludes sources because they advocate opinions that argue against a transgender point of view.

@Chess I take issue with this framing somewhat, because I don't hold with this pro/anti framing. What I am arguing for is proper, balanced representation of sources which contain different clinical perspectives. This is a difficult subject with significant conceptual disagreements between clinicians, and our job is not to pick winners but to neutrally present all significant points of view.

The Cass Review started from the position that children and young people were being referred to clinical services in distress over their gender in increasing numbers, and to evaluate the level of care they received, and the evidence base this care was based on. It found the evidence base was poor, and there was little-to-no followup to see if there were any benefits. This is not arguing against a transgender point of view - it is arguing for a cautious, evidence-based medicine point of view in a vulnerable population. It is also a significant, well-sourced point of view that's been accepted across the political spectrum and by all the medical bodies that actually matter, as well as being independently assessed and endorsed by Scotland's health service.

The controversy now is that the model prevalent in the US in particular is the affirmation approach, which takes the position the clinician is a facilitator of the child or young person's gender identity. Cass notes a tension between exploratory approaches which might explore the underlying reasons why a child is experiencing gender distress, and the affirmative model, which starts from the position that the child is the gender they identify as, and that to ask why is pathologising. This is why advocates of the affirmative model insist any other approach is "tantamount to conversion", since any therapeutic approach that might lead to a child "desisting" is seen as conversion (whether it was in fact coercive or not).

This is the issue. One clinical perspective says a child is presenting in distress, and we have to ask why, because sometimes things like autism, trauma, depression, internalised homophobia, may be manifesting as distress about their gender, and unpicking those reasons can alleviate the distress. The other says that the distress is often a symptom of an unaffirmed gender identity, and that to suggest it is arising from, say, internalised homophobia is pathologising a trans identity. Likewise, that comorbid conditions like autism and self-harm should not be barriers to transition, but managed in parallel.

Both of these are well-supported in the literature. Saying one is definitively right and calling other perspectives FRINGE to exclude them and any related issues is not at all the way to go, and is a misuse of FRINGE IMO. We should admit what we don't know and explain it neutrally to the reader.

In the ordinary run of things, the Cass Review would obviously be a reliable source. However, because trans healthcare for children and young people is currently facing legal challenges in the US from the right-wing, and because the Cass Review found the evidence base was actually weak, its findings have been drawn into the toxic legal/political battle in the US, and those currently fighting against those bans have submitted amicus briefs in various legal cases (including the supreme court) attempting to pick holes in it. Which means that such criticism is not independent, has a major vested interest, and has to be taken with a big pinch of salt. Void if removed (talk) 12:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Void, you have spent the last year repeatedly (Personal attack removed) "US activists!!!!!" any time there is any criticism of the Cass Review. Are you actually, seriously, unaware, that trans people in the UK have been the most vocal critics of the review and recommendations since it came out?

Both of these are well-supported in the literature. - no they are not. If a kid says "I am trans and want to socially transition", the claim that a therapist must [unpick] those reasons why and argue the desire might be caused by autism, trauma, depression, internalised homophobia is actually incredibly FRINGE and there's never been evidence it's necessary. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It also bears repeating that many of the criticisms brought up in this thread are described as being about the Cass Review, when they are actually about the series of systematic reviews that it commissioned. Eg. a substantial part of both the Yale amicus brief and the Noone preprint is attacking the methodology of those reviews, from the search criteria to the quality evaluation.

Systematic reviews are at the top of the MEDRS pyramid. Grey literature like this is nowhere close. These sources are simply not competent to poke holes in systematic reviews in this way. Taking such criticisms of the underlying reviews as "true" seems to be out of whack with MEDRS. Void if removed (talk) 10:19, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• A non-point - this is a government commissioned review, and as such published under the NHS.

WP:MEDRS reads:

Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include the U.S. National Academies (including the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences), the British National Health Service, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization. The reliability of these sources ranges from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, to public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature.

The fact remains that this is a statment commissioned by the NHS, includes a systematic review, is referenced in UK guidelines, and there is no reasonable debate that it is allowed by WP:MEDRS.

However, just as the MEDRS-guidelines says:

Guidelines by major medical and scientific organizations sometimes clash with one another (for example, the World Health Organization and American Heart Association on salt intake), which should be resolved in accordance with WP:WEIGHT. Guidelines do not always correspond to best evidence, but instead of omitting them, reference the scientific literature and explain how it may differ from the guidelines. Remember to avoid WP:original research by only using the best possible sources, and avoid weasel words and phrases by tying together separate statements with "however", "this is not supported by", etc. The image below attempts to clarify some internal ranking of statements from different organizations in the weight they are given on Wikipedia.

The fact that a MEDRS source is controversial favors attending to statements from it with potential counterpoints from other literature - in an unbiased way.

WP:MEDRS also reads:

Do not reject a higher-level source (e.g., a meta-analysis) in favor of a lower one (e.g., any primary source) because of personal objections to the inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, or conclusions in the higher-level source. Editors should not perform detailed academic peer review.

This is exactly what is attempted to be done here - we dislike the source - so we reject its findings. This is not congruent with WP:MEDRS, WP:RS or frankly any of WP:PILLARS.

I implore any editors that take offence to the views of the Cass Review to treat it as a controversial publication by a major national health organisation, that was put forth through commission (as most reports by the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the World Health Organization among others and that make up a cornerstone of referenced literature on Wikipedia) - and thus treat it in the way Wikipedia should treat it - by referencing its findings, and referencing high quality opposing findings side by side in a WP:NEUTRAL manner.

I reiterate from WP:MEDRS:

Editors should not perform detailed academic peer review.

Now, let us move on. CFCF (talk) 14:56, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All your argument really suggests is that WP:MEDRS is not presently equipped to handle state capture of governmental healthcare bodies. Will we be including anti-vax stuff as WP:MEDRS when the United States starts producing it at the behest of their new Secretary of Health and Human Services? Simonm223 (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you suggesting that the Cass Review was somehow ‘captured’ by the Conservative government? If so, why have the current Labour government, and the current SNP Scottish devolved government all endorsed it? There’s not much all 3 of those political parties agree on. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm suggesting that the Cass review represents the introduction of transphobic misinformation into the corpus of formal UK healthcare. I should have said capture of the state rather than capture by the state. Simonm223 (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What on earth are you talking about? Sweet6970 (talk) 16:03, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Although I sympathise ideas of state capture aren't policy based arguments, or you at least need to show strong RS to back it up. If you believe MEDRS needs to be updated you need to take it to WT:MEDRS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:30, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All I'm saying is that, if MEDRS automatically assumes government sources are reliable we're going to have a rough four years. Simonm223 (talk) 16:38, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe it does, but discussions on MEDRS are complex and can't be reduced to simple claims. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reading WP:MEDORG, well, it kind of does; at least, it creates the very strong presumption that they are. Meanwhile, the National Academies are already compromised in areas that intersect significantly with public health. XOR'easter (talk) 18:50, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about everyone who has already discussed this at length on various talk pages takes a few steps back and allows other members of the community to discuss this? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:37, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(IMO this is already happening, there are lots of people in the discussions on FTN that don't normally edit WP:GENSEX.) Loki (talk) 17:32, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem here is that it can't just be ignored, but neither is it always due for inclusion. I suggest that unless it is going to be discussed in WP:RSCONTEXT the question is just to broad to be given anything but the most broad answer. It's a govermental report, and if it is going to be included, it should be used with attribution as with other such reports. Whether it should be included is a matter of NPOV not reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a governmental report. It is an independent review, commissioned by NHS England. It is independent of both the NHS and the Government. That's the point of an independent review - to be independent.

The Review is independent of the NHS and Government and neither required nor sought approval or sign-off of this report’s contents prior to publication.

Void if removed (talk) 17:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That may very well be that it was created independently, but it is still a goverment report. If I run a business and hire independent consultants to do a report on the operations of my company, that report is still one of my business's reports.
An organisation can't disclaim the report it caused to be created. To accept that would be a very bad precedent. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:18, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is WP:DUE requires a source to be reliable for it to factor in. If other editors are saying "the Cass Report can't be WP:DUE because it isn't reliable", is that a WP:DUE issue or a reliability issue? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:29, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would appear to be near circular in logic, and wrong. Unreliable sources shouldn't be used, if the source is unreliable why is a discussion on it's inclusion happening at all. As I've said the report is reliable for what it is as such reports are, but that doesn't mean it gets a pass against offer reliable sources.
I can only again say it should be used with attribution, and may not be due. If other sources are discussing it in a particular context then it's likely due, if it's in relation to trans health care in the UK it would definitely be due. Where it's used it should be in context with all other significant view point from other reliable source, but that is deeply into NPOV not reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not level 1 reliable—Use with caution and with regards to WP:WEIGHT. A lot of other MEDRS have made strong points against some of the reports findings — it is best as a primary source for itself and I would never support using as a pure citation without describing the full context of its release and responses, at minimum give it an in-text citation eg “according to the Cass Review,” and avoid using the original reports (stick exclusively to the review elements). The context of its political motivations and the responses from other medical organizations impact its reliability, as in other cases where different government or medical bodies disagree on medical recommendations. ~Malvoliox (talk | contribs) 17:51, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifying—i agree with CFCF’s point that it belongs in discussion alongside other high quality opposing sources and with context ~Malvoliox (talk | contribs) 17:56, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can I ask Malvoliox what you mean when you say it is not WP:TIER1 reliable?

This terminology isn't really used when it comes to WP:MEDRS where government reports are at the top tier of reliability (see quotes above, and the MEDRS-page).

I think your interpretation of my comment is that the source is both WP:RS, but also WP:DUE in many contexts. Is that right?

And, just so that we, and everyone else here can be on the same page, and to square the tiering you refer to: the fact that the source is both "reliable" and "due":

1) In no way endorses its findings as truth

2) Nor does it negate the need to also present what is a preponderance of opposing views.

Do you agree?

I think this is a very simple take and frankly the only viable position that adheres to both WP:RS, WP:MEDRS, WP:DUE, and WP:PILLARS.

CFCF (talk) 10:33, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose I’m not deeply familiar with the specifics of MEDRS. I meant that I would agree to the relevance of MEDRS guidelines where government and scientific perspectives differ. I would only advocate inclusion in a context that acknowledges its presence in a field that disagrees with its claims more than it agrees—the one piece you brought out that I was referring to was this piece of MEDRS:

”Guidelines by major medical and scientific organizations sometimes clash with one another (for example, the World Health Organization and American Heart Association on salt intake), which should be resolved in accordance with WP:WEIGHT. Guidelines do not always correspond to best evidence, but instead of omitting them, reference the scientific literature and explain how it may differ from the guidelines. Remember to avoid WP:original research by only using the best possible sources, and avoid weasel words and phrases by tying together separate statements with "however", "this is not supported by", etc. The image below attempts to clarify some internal ranking of statements from different organizations in the weight they are given on Wikipedia.”

This is a case of needing to demonstrate the ways in which the overall field scientific literature differs from this review, which was created in a politically motivated context in order to achieve a particular result.

It’s a good source on itself, and it’s notable in its impact, but it differs from most literature and has racked up a lot of criticism in the medical community. That’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with what the findings are so much as one of acknowledging the context of its commission & responses by the medical community. I lean towards not reliable in contexts purely about what is medically viable/reliable in the context of government recommendations as it is the basis for some.

~Malvoliox (talk | contribs) 17:03, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not reliable A quick glance at the page for the Cass Review shows the medical fields of pretty much every country outside the UK ripping its conclusions and recommendations to shreds. It’s a non-peer reviewed government report from a government with a long and well documented history of targeting trans people, and should be treated as such. Snokalok (talk) 00:18, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument has nothing to do with whether it is a WP:RS. Rather it highlights the need to present the results of the report in a neutral and unbiased manner - with corresponding findings from other high quality sources next to it. CFCF (talk) 10:22, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it matters; WP:RS is about whether a source has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Heavy criticism is one indicator that it lacks such a reputation. --Aquillion (talk) 15:18, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. XOR'easter (talk) 17:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GUNREL. The review has no editorial oversight and as noted within the Cass Review article, several major medical orgs have criticized it for significant methodological flaws. It should not be used to support MEDRS claims and should primarily be used as a primary source for articles related to the review itself and related controversies. HenrikHolen (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Use with care I think the responses that suggest this is a complex issue are the most on point. This is clearly a well researched report conducted for (and presumably accepted by) the NHS. It is also the sort of report we are going to normally put the most faith in because it was a search and summary of other sources on the topic vs trying to be it's own primary source. The criticisms of the report appear to be more based on not liking the results vs any true problem with the report itself. However, as others have noted, it didn't undergo traditional peer review. Conversely, if it has been cited by many then it's views should be seen as influential. I would treat it as an expert review. When it speaks to a topic citing with attribution is reasonable. Unless the NHS rejects the report as unreliable I can't see treating it as such. Springee (talk) 13:04, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inf: the Cass Review has been accepted by NHS England, which commissioned it, and also by NHS Scotland, a separate body responsible to the devolved Scottish Government. Sweet6970 (talk) 16:11, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No. It's a nakedly political document advanced for culture-war reasons in a corner of the world where all the major political players are nearly or completely captured by transphobia. I'm sorry I don't have the WP: shortcut on hand for that situation, but that's the size of it. XOR'easter (talk) 17:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  in a corner of the world where all the major political players are nearly or completely captured by transphobia. There's no shortcut because you can't automatically ban sources from parts of the world that have hateful political views. This logic was decidedly rejected when editors tried to degrade the reliability of multiple major British newspapers due to transphobia in the UK. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:32, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not talking about banning all sources from the UK. I'm saying that something can be endorsed by multiple political parties in the UK and still be rotten. XOR'easter (talk) 18:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What evidence do you have that it is a “nakedly political document advanced for culture-war reasons and that “all the major political players are nearly or completely captured by transphobia. – apart from the fact that you disagree with the Review? Sweet6970 (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is probably that the Cass review is too apolitical. It simply looks at the published medical evidence and draws conclusions from that. Unfortunately in a field that is exceptionally politicised, that creates problems. In another country altogether, people who want to do some quite bad things are seizing on it and attempting to make life difficult or even unbearable for transpeople. That is not Cass's fault.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:28, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• As others have said, this is an independent report commissioned by the British government, conducted by an extremely eminent individual. Its findings will very often be WP:DUE but it should usually be attributed as any source in a field where a range of often completely contradictory opinions exist.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:28, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Not Unreliable - This is certainly a controversial source, and as such needs to be used with caution. But that does not mean it should never be cited. Context matters. The review is influential enough that it can not be simply dismissed as Fringe/UNDUE and ignored.

I would also caution editors to distinguish what the report itself says, from what activist sources (both pro and anti) claim it says. It has been misrepresented by both extremes. Blueboar (talk) 12:39, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, it is a reliable source. Despite being commissioned by the NHS in the UK, it is not government-driven because Dr. Hilary Cass and a large group of medical experts rather than legislators shaped its conclusions. Professionals from pediatrics, endocrinology, and mental health were involved in the review, which adopted a cautious, evidence-based methodology while taking patient experiences and global medical research into account. Its credibility was strengthened by similar independent reviews conducted in Finland and Sweden which came to similar conclusions. It is probably a primary rather than a secondary source, being a government commissioned research, but it is a very important document reflecting best practices and patient safety in gender-affirming care.--Colaheed777 (talk) 21:48, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, it is a generally reliable source. There are many signals of reliability. There is uncritical use by others: [34] [35] [36]. It publishes corrections: [37]. It was written by a recognised expert [38]. It has of course been criticised by many, but unusually and very usefully we have peer-reviewed academic articles explaining why those criticisms are over-egged:

From [39]:

Recently-published critiques of the Review have contained incorrect or inadequately contextualized claims.

From [40]:

We conclude that these sources misrepresent the Cass Review’s role and process

many of the methodological criticisms directed at the Cass Review... are unfounded

These misunderstandings, based on flawed and non-peer-reviewed analyses intended for legal (rather than clinical) purposes...

Many of these misrepresentations and misunderstandings are repeated here in this RfC. It's particularly unfortunate that the first response repeats a piece of misinformation which still hasn't been struck more than a week later.

On the subject of whether this is a "government report", I think the relevant question is not whether its genesis was in government or whether it was funded by government, but its degree of independence from government. The report is completely unlike, say, a publication from the Cabinet Office, which is the principal executive. NHS England is a step removed from direct government control, and the Cass Review is several more steps removed. Cass in turn commissioned a series of systematic reviews, which if we follow a reductionistic fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree argument would make them "government reports" too. Clearly they are not, and the degree of autonomy granted to Cass was such that the Cass Review is not materially governmental either. Evidence of this is the broad bipartisan support it received and continues to receive even after a change in government. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:04, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also note this oblique criticism of the criticism via the Hierarchy of Disagreement in this recent peer-reviewed article:

In medicine the hierarchy of disagreement is a valuable tool for examining the arguments made by groups advocating different treatment approaches, particularly when combined with the evidence pyramid. Anyone wondering whether to rely on the recommendations of Cass Review or those who have rebuffed these arguments would be encouraged to annotate the critique published by (McNamara et al, 2024), with coloured highlighters to code the types of argument used against the conclusions of the Cass Review or try the same with Cheung et al.’s 2024 critique of McNamara’s critique - (Cheung et al, 2024). The resulting colour maps neatly illustrate the predominance of arguments from each level of the disagreement pyramid.

Void if removed (talk) 10:19, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is clear from discussion that there is no consensus as to who the publisher of this report is. I would think that in any other circumstances a self published(?) report that we only know 1 of many authors of wouldn't be argued as a RS let alone a MEDRS source. The only place this could get reliability from is use by others and I have never seen that argument been presented for MEDRS before and that argument has not been made here. I would also note that people have been heavily arguing about the independence of the report from the NHS and government so the idea that this is a statement from the NHS seems at odds with the fact that the NHS had no control over the report. LunaHasArrived (talk) 10:54, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Unhelpful question. There's a lot of misinformation about the Cass Review. As already noted it makes little sense to describe it as a "source", reliable or otherwise, since it is a four year review chaired by one person, consulting with over a thousand individuals and groups, commissioning around eight specific medical reviews published in clinical journals that were themselves run by teams of dozens of experts, and with the purpose of answering issues affecting NHS England (not, cough, the USA). Saying the Cass Review was not "peer reviewed" or is "self published" or is the spew of a transphobic government are all activist misinformation tropes of the most blatant Trumpian kind. As noted earlier, there are a lot of systematic reviews and scholarly investigations that were commissioned by the Cass Review. These form as integral a part of the Cass Review as an engine does in a car. These are all MEDRS of the highest order. The Final Report, has a sole author, but, guys, that doesn't make it "self published". It was commissioned and published by NHS England. This is not the same thing as the Tory Party, and as a non-departmental public body has independence. We still have a functioning democracy here, where our health bodies are run by people whose aim is to make a nation healthier, not to make shareholders richer or not win elections or advance ideological causes of any flavour. Furthermore, the report was accepted by NHS England and then reviewed and adopted with adaptation by NHS Scotland, which is an entirely different body funded by an entirely different government elected by an entirely different nation. You can read NHS Scotland's review here. Nothing in NHS Scotland's review, which itself took months and involved a team of experts, rings any alarm bells about the Cass Review's Final Report being an unreliable source.

If we concern ourselves with the Final Report then it is a mix of two things. It contains a lot of factual information, "key findings", much of which is based on the MEDRS sources I mentioned earlier, plus other information from how NHS England's gender clinic was performing at the time, and the kind of population cohort going through its doors. For these facts, there is nothing to suggest it is anything other than top tier reliable. Other bodies may well present these findings with different emphasis and some may reach different conclusions from the same evidence, but this is a natural result of us being humans rather than machines.

The other thing it contains are 32 recommendations from Dr Cass. And that's what they are. They are aimed at NHS England, and other countries are welcome, as Scotland did, to look at them and pick what they like and reject what they don't, or to ignore recommendations that simply don't apply in a different healthcare system. It is wrong of us to consider the "reliability" of these recommendations. It is clear that while some nations and bodies are enthusiastic about them, others are not. That doesn't make them unreliable. For example, the US have an insurance model of healthcare and the UK has a tax-funded model. Recommending one model or another isn't a reliability issue. Rational people can come to different recommendations.

Lastly, aside from the nonsense about self-published, I see some claims that we should treat this highly cautiously because of some association with government. I've already noted it is independent of that and not some Tory Party Manifesto or campaign leaflet. But, well, would you listen to yourself? This is the epitome of "I don't like their findings so I'll invent some rule saying it isn't reliable". Is NHS: Covid-19 unreliable? Is Gov.uk: Getting an MOT unreliable? Is Gov.uk: Your rights and legal support unreliable? Are you saying that government information about seat belts is unreliable? Maybe the UK National diet and nutrition survey is unreliable? The vast vast majority of publications by a mature democratic government, or organisations that report to it, are not political or ideological or remotely contentious.

The author of this RFC has asked the wrong question, and I think we should call a halt to using this noticeboard as a proxy for waging the trans culture war battle on Wikipedia, as though editors here are any more capable of finding The Truth to that one than the wider population or the actual experts in healthcare. -- Colin°^Talk 15:01, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here might be a good place to mention the Assurance Group, a 7-member panel which has been established to provide expert advice and challenge about the approach and processes used to conduct the review, and to ensure that the Review is conducted in accordance with its terms of reference.. This is very far from being a self-published source, as there are multiple independent professionals providing oversight. In fact, a 7-member panel of experts from multiple disciplines is far more oversight than some academic peer review involves. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing on that page that suggests that the group reviewed the final report (In fact if one considers the report to be an outcome, the group could not have informed the report). Also the group was chosen by Cass (the only know author) so it doesn't scream independent. Do note the difference between the reports and the review (which usually refers to the process/group rather than any output.) LunaHasArrived (talk) 15:08, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Luna, my own !vote should make it clear how dimly I think of the idea that this is "self published" or that there is any doubt at all who the publisher is. -- Colin°^Talk 15:22, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Colin, there is no agreement among editors (here and elsewhere) about what "self-published" means. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:33, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sweet6970 above argued that the final report was published by the review. I did have a look for a statement about a publisher but couldn't find any statement. If you have any statement so that there is no doubt it would be very welcome. LunaHasArrived (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the Review does appear among "formal publications from the Cass Review," but does not appear among the NHS's own publications. Those are the most likely publishers, though perhaps you have some other proposal for who might have published it. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:35, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, do you mean the final report (it is very important to use precise language here as it can get confusing with the Cass review, the Systematic reviews and the interim and final reports.) LunaHasArrived (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the final report, as should be clear from the first link. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:25, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My remark was based on the fact that the Review appears on the tab for ‘Publications’ on the Review’s website. This was in response to suggestions that the Review was a ‘government’ publication. I don’t think this is relevant to the question of whether it is a ‘self-published source’ in the Wikipedia sense. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:20, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FactOrOpinion I don't think there is a single word in WP:SPS that applies to the Final Report of the Cass Review or any of the supporting scholarly works. Nor is there any evidence in the discussion you link to that suggest editors have "no-agreement" whatsoever about what self-published means. There's quite a difference between editors recognising our current description/definition in inadequate and failing to reach any consensus on a better one that tightly defines the Venn bubble of what is and isn't self-published, and your claim that editors have simply no clue. It is quite possible for editors to agree that some works are definitely self-published and that some are definitely not. Having a single-author, for example, doesn't make the work self-published. Being commissioned and published by a body ultimately funded by the taxpayer doesn't make the work self-published.

Wrt the earlier comment about the Assurance Group. I don't think they reviewed the final document. Their job is to be process nerds and ensure the review is done properly. But guys, this is a 388 page report. I can barely type two paragraphs without making a typo. The idea it wasn't proof read and fact checked meticulously is for the birds. There's a FAQ on the website for disinformation, but there isn't an errata page (AFAIK). The fact that some information some claim is essential to know about the review/publication process is evading their detective powers from their home PC is not evidence that Dr Cass just blogged their review and posted it on WordPress.

Any rule invented as a reason "X should not be used as a source" needs to work generally. FactOrOpinion, much of the disagreement about whether something is or isn't a self-published source is that it effectively kills it as a source, and that is in fact what an editor wants to achieve. Same goes with the FRINGE arguments elsewhere. It's a weapon. One editor wants to expand a definition to include a source they want banned, and it is up to other editors to say that if we adopted that rule elsewhere, then all those perfectly reasonable sources would be banned too. I should note this is all done in good faith but people can argue wrong headedly in good faith.

The non-departmental public body that calls itself National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published Tirzepatide for managing overweight and obesity. Many of the arguments pushed forward on this noticeboard page applies to that. And yet NICE guidelines form a bedrock of MEDRS sources throughout our medical articles. That document, like the Cass Review, contains a mix of uncontentious evidence-based facts, and some recommendations, some of which are contentious. Other health bodies will reach other recommendations as to minimum BMI, or what kind of weight-related comorbidity is appropriate, or when to stop treatment and so on. And not least who should pay. Some of the NICE recommendation is evidence based medicine and some weighs the financial cost to the NHS. What I'm not aware of, on the subject of weight loss, is editors demanding to know the name, address, telephone number, school qualifications and grades, university degree, last three jobs, current holiday plans, BMI, health conditions and marital status of the bloody copyeditor. Or complaining that since NICE commission their own reports, appoint their own experts and publish the reports on their own website, that this is some kind of self published source we should run screaming from. Colin°^Talk 19:03, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Colin, there's agreement at the two ends of the range, for example, that things like tweets are self-published and things like peer-reviewed articles aren't. But there's no agreement about a huge swath that falls in between, that is, no agreement about whether/when publications from the following kinds of organizations are self-published: advocacy groups, universities, learned societies, think tanks, corporations, international non-governmental organizations, intergovernmental bodies, museums, foundations, charities, labor unions, and political campaigns. All you have to do to see that disagreement is look at the !votes for Question 2, and you'll see even more of it if you look at the RFCBEFORE discussions. Seems to me that the Cass Review falls in that middle ground. If by "the supporting scholarly works," you mean the systematic reviews that the Cass Review commissioned, those weren't published by the Cass Review itself. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:42, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"those weren't published by the Cass Review itself" Why do you write those words. So what? They were published in frankly the highest quality journal one could hope for. They are still part of the Cass Review. here describes the reviews. Each one says This work was funded by NHS England to inform the Cass Review (Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people). The funder and Cass Review team had a role in commissioning the research programme but no role in the study conduct, interpretation or conclusion. These are all part of the "Cass Review".

Nobody arguing the Cass Review is "self published" is interested in debating your middle ground. It is an argument used to ban a source for containing recommendations and facts editors wish, in all good faith, to suppress. It is frankly as silly as someone saying the NHS Health website is self published. -- Colin°^Talk 11:40, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote it because I was addressing publication status: self-published or not. Everyone agrees that the systematic reviews are not self-published. But that has no implications for whether the Review itself is/isn't self-published. Re: "They are still part of the Cass Review,'" I don't agree. They don't appear in the Cass Review (formally: the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People) and don't appear in the Cass Review's publications list; that the Cass Review team commissioned them does not imply that they're part of the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, any more than the fact that the NHS commissioned the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People implies that that Independent Review is part of an NHS publication. I suspect that part of the problem here is that people use the phrase "Cass Review" to mean more than one thing (e.g., the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, the team that wrote that review, the acts of reviewing by that team, the website explaining the team's work and hosting its publications); we're talking about whether the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People is/isn't self-published. I'm not trying to argue about whether the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People is/isn't self-published, my only point is that there is no agreement among editors about what "self-published" means.

Re: "Nobody arguing the Cass Review is "self published" is interested in debating your middle ground. It is an argument used to ban a source for containing recommendations and facts editors wish, in all good faith, to suppress," I suggest that you ask Void if removed whether he thinks that the Cass Review is self-published. I've read many, many of his statements about what "self-published means," and based on everything he's said about it, I think he'll say that the Review is self-published, even though he clearly doesn't want it suppressed and considers it reliable. Odds are that he'll also say that the NHS website is self-published. If you don't want to ask, I can link to statements he's made about other similar organizations and about self-publication more generally. He considers everything self-published unless it's published by a separate publishing company. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:52, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would find it remarkable if, at the end of a four year effort, the assurance group didn't provide some level of oversight of the final report, given one of their roles is:

Advise on the types of evidence that should be sought by the Review team, the methods for gathering that evidence and the interpretation, significance and relevance of the evidence.

(my emphasis)

At an absolute minimum, having a team of people assure that the Review was conducted using appropriate processes and methodology is a strong quality signal that should remove all doubt that this might be a SPS. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 12:16, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure it matters whether the report is SPS or not… since it would qualify for the “expert exemption” even if we wish to define it as such. Not all SPS are “bad”. Blueboar (talk) 15:26, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It matters in terms of whether anyone knows what "self-published" means, as it's untenable that there is no consensus about what a key policy means. I agree that that the Review probably falls under the expert SPS exemption even if it's self-published, but it's a strange case, since Hilary Cass is the only author who's actually identified. What does the expert SPS exemption mean for a co-authored work when only one author's expertise can be assessed? And even if it's considered an expert SPS, those likely aren't considered high quality MEDRS sources. (For example, the RS statement about preprints says that they shouldn't be used for medical content.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes It's a NHS-commissioned report based on systematic reviews which are considered top-rate MEDRS. Of course, it should be presented with appropriate attribution and in context with other significant viewpoints, similar to how we treat other national health body publications. Alaexis_¿question? 21:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, as noted, The Cass Review is a comprehensive review commissioned by the National Health Service in the area of transgender medicine. It made conclusions that were highly unpopular in some circles, however, that doesn't make it less reliable, Huldra (talk) 23:15, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, The Cass review is a reliable source on its subject matter. The criticism comes mostly from partisan sources who disagree with its finding that the evidence supporting the benefits of puberty blockers for minors is extremely weak. Many of these critics argue from an ideological standpoint rather than a strictly scientific or medical perspective. However, the Cass Review aligns with growing international scrutiny over the use of puberty blockers in gender medicine, and the concerns raised in the Cass Review are part of a larger reassessment of pediatric gender medicine worldwide. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 11:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, It has been cited in subsequent reviews (e.g., New Zealand), and it issues retractions. However, it is one of many government reviews, and not all experts agree with its conclusions. It needs to be treated like any other government report. Reviews with differing conclusions must also be presented with it. The Knowledge Pirate (talk) 23:43, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  For the record, the New Zealand Ministry of Health cited it only briefly in an evidence brief it noted not government policy or a clinical guideline in the section "Legislation and Governance:International context:United Kingdom" to describe how trans healthcare works in the UK[41], as well as an addendum to say the final report was published, and compare it's own review, which focused on different questions.[42]

  So to say It has been cited in subsequent reviews (e.g., New Zealand) is somewhat misleading, as the only time it cites the review is in its review of other countries reviews. The reviews of the evidence base did not cite Cass.

  Meanwhile, high quality sources like this clinical practice guideline state regarding the Cass Review that The full report was made public in the spring of 2024. Although it was initially intended to be related to the organisation of healthcare in England and Wales, it caused a stir in public opinion and immediate harsh criticism from the medical and patient communities worldwide [36–38]. A detailed discussion of the document, comprising several hundred pages, goes beyond the scope of the Guidelines. However, the author’s concentration mainly on the absence of high-quality research on minors with GD/GI, and her lack of clinical experience indicate the low scientific value and credibility of the report [39, 40] ... One of the overt criteria that the NHS followed in choosing Hilary Cass was her complete lack of experience in working with people with gender incongruence and dysphoria, which was to ensure her independence and impartiality. However, in practice it resulted in an unprecedented situation in healthcare when a non-expert in the field was invited to develop expert recommendations. The common thread of many objections to the Cass report is the multifaceted downplaying of the importance of the voices of adolescents and their families, clinical practice, the scientific knowledge base, and national and global recommendations, while misleading the public that a complete lack of clinical experience in a given field is a guarantee of reliability. As a multidisciplinary team of experts and patients, we consider such a trend to be harmful and completely contrary to the interests of adolescents in need of help[43] Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:15, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Type error. This is not a yes/no question, as is implied by the fact of the review itself being an intensely debated political topic with a nearly 200,000-character-long article about it. It would be asinine to have a bunch of guys^[1] sitting around a table at RSN decide authoritatively that it was unreliable, and it would be asinine to have a bunch of guys sitting around a table at RSN decide authoritatively that it was reliable. As CFCF has said above, there is some extent to which its publication by the National Health Service mean we would consider it reliable for medical consensus, and there is also some extent to which high-level bodies may differ from each other. This is not the first time that organizations have disgreed with each other about stuff, and it will not be the last time. Is there some reason why the policies which tell us how to navigate these situations cannot be used here? jp×g🗯️ 03:40, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that the fairly obvious answer is that if a bunch of guys (similarly caveated) at RSN can be persuaded that the Cass Review is not a reliable source, then mention of its findings will generally not occur in articles on Trans-healthcare. Some of our users feel that would improve the content of our encyclopaedia.Boynamedsue (talk) 14:21, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the even more obvious answer is that either a "bunch of guys" decide this question here or they will decide it separately on every individual page where it's relevant. Loki (talk) 16:11, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to propose the inclusion of The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam by Bat Ye’or as a reliable source. This book has been cited by multiple historians and scholars who have engaged with its arguments, particularly in relation to the article History of the Jews under Muslim rule.

For instance:

Several positive or neutral reviews

• Paul Fenton, in his 1981 review of the French edition of Le Dhimmi, noted the importance of both works, stating:

The need for a serious and objective source book on the history of the Jews in Arab lands untainted by ideological options has long been felt by students of Middle Eastern history. The two titles under review both respond to this need, albeit in quite different, if not complementary, manners.^[2]

• Leon Nemoy, curator of Hebrew and Arabic literature at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library, affirmed the credibility of Ye’or’s sources, writing wrote that while one might disagree "here and there" with the major thesis propounded by Bat Ye'or, it cannot be dismissed as "a pack of lies" since her documented evidence comes from "highly reliable testimonies".

Obviously the principal part of the book is the documentary section, which offers to the reader the original views of Muslim theologians and jurists on the general relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, and on how non-Muslim minorities should be treated, as well as the testimony of both non-Muslim minority individuals and foreign observers as to what the Dhimmi's life was actually like. One might conceivably disagree here and there with Mme. Bat Ye'or's conclusions drawn from these documents, but one cannot challenge the original Muslim texts, or characterize all the factual accounts of both Dhimmis and foreign observers (some-if not most-of the latter were not exactly philosemites) as a pack of lies from beginning to end. These pièces justificatives are essentially highly reliable testimonies by eyewitnesses on the actual circumstances of non-Muslim life under Muslim rule throughout the medieval and modern periods of history." ^[3]

• Allan Harris Cutler and Hellen Cutler, in a 1985 review, described the book as a "documentary history of Islamic antagonism toward Christians and Jews." They also recognized that Ye’or's perspective aligned with historical evidence of dhimmi status under Islamic rule.

  Those of us who, as disciples of Massignon, are working to achieve true reconciliation between the three Abra-hamitic faiths owe a debt of gratitude to Bat Ye'or for the extreme realism of her challenging book, which in essence is a documentary history of Islamic antagonism toward Christians and Jews·[...] .Bat Ye'or believes that the practice conformed to the theory most of the time, the implication being that Islamic mistreatment of Jews and Christians throughout history was as bad as Christian mistreatment of Jews and Muslims.Other scholars with a more optimistic view of Islamic attitudes toward dhimmis hold that as often as not the Muslims in practice ignored the contempt which their sacred texts taught them to exhibit toward Christians and Jews,the implication being that on the whole Muslims treated Jews and Christians better than Christians treated Jews and Muslims.^[4]

• In 2014, Mark R. Cohen in the book A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations wrote

  The highly politicized debate, exacerbated by the worldwide fear of Islamism and by the Islamophobia following the attack by radical Muslims on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, makes the questions that underlie this book all the more controversial, but, at the same time, all the more begging for dispassionate inquiry."^[5]

• In 2022, Raphael Israeli the historian, professor emeritus of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Chinese history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote in The Rebellion of the Dhimmis: The Break-up of Slavery of Christians and Jews under Islam

  Bat Ye’or’s seminal books ^[a] about the mistreatment, which at times ended in annihilation, of entire Christian communities in the territories occupied by the surging and conquering Islam in the Middle Ages, in the Near and Middle East, North Africa, Black Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans, did much to awaken the awareness and wariness of the contemporary politically correct West.[...] Significant reinforcements were made to Bat Ye’or’s monumental work by a large variety of scholars.^[6]

• For his part, Bernard Heyberger, one of the most knowledgeable scholars of Eastern Christians, explains the resonance of this book in light of the context of its publication:

Bat Ye’or was influential because she was the first to draw attention to the phenomenon of dhimmis. And although she chose to highlight texts that supported her thesis—that Islam has always persecuted Christians—she was able to seek out Arabic documents at a time when this subject was of little interest to academia. Today, the situation is different; the topic has been well studied by various researchers, and the audience I meet during my lectures now expects less confrontational approaches. In recent years, even though references to dhimmis remain frequent on far-right websites, concern for Eastern Christians is no longer confined to Islamophobic and crusader circles.^[7]

Three negative reviews

• In 1986, Vera Bash Moreen, a scholar specializing in the history and culture of pre-modern Jewry, stated in a review published in the MESA Bulletin that

  It is seldom these days that scholars have the opportunity to encounter a book that illustrates practically all the fallacies of the professional historian. The Dhimmi of Y. Masriya is such a book [...] The Dhimmi is primarily a collection of 116 documents culled from various parts of the Muslim world over a period of time spanning eight centuries but concentrating on the nineteenth century. [...] The collection of documents assembled in this book is a valuable source-reader for students of the Middle East.[...]The overriding fallacy apparent in The Dhimmi is that of anachronism. Bat Ye'or is concerned primarily with the repercussions of the concepts of jihad and dhimma in the contemporary Muslim world and how these concepts influence the Muslim, primarily Arab, attitude towards Israel (chap. 6). [...] The Dhimmi remains a polemical work determined to demonstrate a clearly anti-Islamic approach to the subject.^[8]

• Professor of Medieval Islamic history, David Waines, in a 1987 review of an English edition, writes

  Her portrait of the dhimmi, however, is executed in monochrome. The Jewish dhimmi in particular is depicted as so utterly segregated, humiliated, and impoverished that it is inconceivable that the rich Judeo-Islamic cultural tradition of the Middle Ages could ever have been created. [...] Moreover, her selection of primary documents is marred by the curious fact that the picture of the dhimmi’s condition is mainly mediated through the eyes of Europeans who journeyed to the Middle East.[...] The Dhimmi is a tract for the times and as such reveals the author more clearly to the reader than it accurately mirrors the past.^[9]

• Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, whose scholarly research focuses on Shiite Islam, specifies: 'The study of texts is one thing, their interpretation is another. Bat Ye’or is someone who knows the classical texts, but like many colleagues (in one direction or another), she tends to read them in a way that is both anachronistic and one-sided.^[7]

Bat Ye’or’s work has also been cited in historical studies by respected scholars such as:

• Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages. (The book The Dhimmi is cited there at least five times)
• Martin Gilbert, In Ishmael's House: A History of the Jews in Muslim Lands. (The book The Dhimmi is cited there at least five times)
• Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam: "Two other works, which emphasize the negative aspects of the Muslim record, are Bat Ye’or (pseudonym), Le Dhimmi: Profil de ľoprimé en Orient et en Afrique du nord depuis la conquête arabe (Paris, 1980),^[10]
• In the collective volume led by Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day,^[5] it is cited once

The inclusion of The Dhimmi as a source is justified by its recognition in academic literature and its use in historical studies. The book provides a significant perspective on Jewish and Christian life under Islamic rule, making it a relevant source for Wikipedia’s coverage of this historical period. Forty years after her book The Dhimmi: most books written on the subject have changed their perspective on the situation of Jews in Muslim countries; they have become less lenient about the status of Dhimmi compared to those written before 1980. We should be able to cite it as a courtesy.Michael Boutboul (talk) 19:51, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For a subject like this, where there are many reliable books, no book should have very much individual influence. But I don't think there's anything wrong with using The Dhimmi as an attributed source for noteworthy opinion, or especially for documentary translations. The opinion of scholars like Nemoy is not easily dismissed. I don't think it's appropriate to apply critiques of her later career to this book.

BTW the most-cited source on History of the Jews under Muslim rule currently is A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations (2013) which should only be used carefully. Despite the apparent quality of its editorial team, some of the individual articles are unworthy. For example, Nazmi al-Jubeh's "Jerusalem and Hebron in the Ottoman era". GordonGlottal (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree with both of your statements. Frankly speaking 40 years after she wrote this book there is no information that we cannot find elsewhere but this book brought a new perspective on the topic. Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:24, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that there is a clear consensus not to add this book as a reliable source. I won’t insist, thanks for your participation. Michael Boutboul (talk) 17:04, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Just at a glance, there's a lot of scholarly criticism and a range of other opinions attested at Bat Ye'or. I'm not seeing any specific criticism of this book there, however. It seems that RS describe her as "controversial" without attribution [44], and note that she's never received an advanced degree or held an academic position (but there is some WP:USEBYOTHERS despite that). Given that there's RS descriptions of her work writ large as conspiracy-driven and controversial, at most perhaps some use with attribution would be appropriate. I would want to see a more thorough argument that acknowledges the criticisms logged against her and presents more USEBYOTHERS that overcome these issues to justify use. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:02, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The first few pages of search results on Google Scholar for Bat Ye'or and "Bat Ye'or" "Dhimmi" are not encouraging, mostly returning papers identifying her work as being in service of promoting the Eurabia conspiracy theory ([45], [46], [47], having skipped over a few indeterminate results I was not able to access and publications of dubious reliability for this topic, such as counter-polemics by academics at titular Islamic universities). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:11, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm also concerned about some of the other key things we know about Bat Ye'or. A promoter of the Eurabia conspiracy theory is not someone I am likely to expect good historical work from. Simonm223 (talk) 20:15, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It's also worth noting that, among the scholars listed in the OP's initial post, Raphael Israeli and Martin Gilbert have also endorsed the Eurabia concept. Cohen, meanwhile, was highly critical of Bat Ye'or in Muslim Anti- Semitism: Old or New? in Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, eds., A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 548-553 Simonm223 (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In the Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora's book, there is nothing about this book (The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam) but about her. We have to separate the book from the author. Michael Boutboul (talk) 22:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually not true, Cohen mentions it in the first chapter as the chief proponent of the "neo-lachrymose" school. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:52, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, the book talks about her not about her book, Th Dhimmi… Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:16, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  No, see note. GordonGlottal (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There's also a bit of a double-standard at play here. Cohen was brough up in the context of three scholars who had cited Bat Ye'or not three scholars who cited that specific book. When I looked for Cohen citations to Bat Ye'or what I found was a citation that was very critical of her. That still very much is a citation but doesn't move the needle on her not being an author of fringe work. Simonm223 (talk) 15:55, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  My take is, Cohen clearly sees the book as a notable opinion worth mentioning in encyclopedia articles! GordonGlottal (talk) 19:22, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Two points: first - this is not demonstated with nothing but a reference toward the title of a book Cohen wrote. A more complete citation including the context in which he mentioned the book would be preferred. Second, the citation I found, from Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, indicates that the specific book we are discusing is where the idea of Dhimmitude - part of the Eurabia conspiracy theory - was originally formulated. So a vague hand-wave toward a citation of a book containing the original formulation of an islamophobic conspiracy theory is not a compelling case for a reliable source. Although it may be a notable fringe source. Simonm223 (talk) 19:29, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  As explained below, this is a mistake by Reza Zia-Ebrahimi. The concept of Dhimmitude was developed 15 years after The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, in a book titled Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. Moreover, there is no reason to follow Reza Zia-Ebrahimi over at least four prominent historians on this topic. Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:24, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Reza Zia-Ebrahimi is a senior lecturer at King's College London. He is a prominent historian. Simonm223 (talk) 21:36, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, he is indeed a very interesting historian (I just checked some of his work), but his work focuses on antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, which are quite far from the book's topic. Several historians in this field cite this book either for its findings or to praise it. Michael Boutboul (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I really can't find it, could you give the kindle location or anything that could help? Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:14, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  See note 8, where he says that The Dhimmi is a representative example of the work he's critiquing. Link. GordonGlottal (talk) 02:50, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks a lot, that’s very interesting. Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:04, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I would like to separate the book from the author; just because she has promoted conspiracy theories does not mean she couldn't have written a book that changed perspectives on a part of history. Just because Churchill was racist doesn't mean he shouldn't be cited, just because James Watson was racist and sexist doesn't mean the discovery of DNA should be ignored, etc. Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:40, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure, but in that case I think you need to show an overwhelming amount of WP:USEBYOTHERS with respect to core bibliographies of the topic of religious minorities in the Muslim world, not a few scattered bits of praise that studiously avoid bringing up the other controversies. In particular, the criticisms I link, while focused on Eurabia as a concept, specifically take issue with Bat Ye’or’s research regarding Dhimmi status, so this is not something that can easily be separated. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:59, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  thats a tough order to sell at WP:RSP, where unreliable authors are often the reason to declare sources unreliable. being the primary pusher of the Eurabia conspiracy theory should disqualify this author, especially as this book overlaps significantly with those problematic viewpoints.

  those comparisons you brought up have no real relevance here User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  And in this case, Dhimmitude is actually a conceptual part of Eurabia. It is not distinct from the conspiracy theory.Simonm223 (talk) 11:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  She used the word Dhimmitude in Eurabia not in the book The Dhimmi… Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think you need to be an expert in etymology to see that "The Dhimmi" and "Dhimmitude" are associated concepts. Simonm223 (talk) 16:55, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  And, in fact, this source identifies the book you are describing as the citation for the concept of Dhimmitude. Simonm223 (talk) 17:13, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Firstly, I understand that there is a consensus here regarding this book, so I won’t insist on adding it as a reliable source. Thank you for sending me this article; however, there is a mistake in it. The concept of dhimmitude does not appear in The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, but Bat Ye’or developed it later in Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. Anyway, once again, thank you for sharing your point of view. Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:21, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "I would like to separate the book from the author"

  Are you really trying this tactic? "Separate the artist from the work" may work in fiction writing, but this is verifiability and reliability. Her being a proponent of antisemitic conspiracy theories is ABSOLUTELY relevant to the question of her reliability on a topic like this. 129.7.0.188 (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There is a misunderstanding here. She is anything but antisemitic; I have never seen such an accusation against her. She has been accused of constructing an 'Islamophobic conspiracy theory,' but the book The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam has never been accused of such infamy. Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:19, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  While this is not the definition most people think of, Islamophobia that focuses specifically on Arabic Muslim populations as a subject of emnity is technically anti-semitism. Simonm223 (talk) 08:32, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The word antisemitic was originally coined to specifically mean hatred of the Jews, not hatred of Semitic people. Choosing a word that by plain reading means hatred of Semitic people has caused confusion, as has hyphenating it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:13, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The dictionary is full of words whose meanings diverge from their etymology, yet no one insists on restoring their etymological sense: Nice (from Latin nescius "foolish"), Awful (full of awe), Silly (from Old English sælig which meant "happy"), etc. If we did, nobody would understand each other.

  Singling out antisemitism for etymological scrutiny is particularly suspect. Michael Boutboul (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Very true, but the dictionary definition of antisemitism is the hatred of Jews not the hatred of Semitic people. Or where you replying to Simonm223? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:35, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I was replying to Simonm223. I fully agree with you previous answer. Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:19, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah that was a little bit off the cuff and I do think ActivelyDisinterested is correct - as I was saying "not the definition most people think of". However I think it's important to foreground that a lot of islamophobia has a specifically anti-Arabic bent which is racist. Islamophobic conspiracy theories like Eurabia are not just bigotry against a religion but a form of racism. ^[1] Simonm223 (talk) 12:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC) Simonm223 (talk) 12:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I would agree that the vast majority of Islamophobia in the west is inseparable from anti-Arabic racism. Even if those behind it don't realise that fact. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:06, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I am not a specialist, but I don’t feel that Arabs face more racism than Pakistanis, Turks, or Iranians. Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think that's the point that Simonm223 is trying to make. Rather it's that a lot of the criticism leveled at Islam in the west is in relation to the Arabic countries, even though not all Arabs are Muslim and the majority of Muslims are not Arabic. For instance the Eurabia conspiracy theory centres solely on the Arabic world, even though the vast majority of Muslims live in South or South East asia rather than the Middle East.
  This is all getting rather off point though. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:36, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  «She is anything but antisemitic» => She is not far from being antisemitic, her variant of the Eurabia narrative is very similar to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

  • Reza Zia-Ebrahimi in DOI 10.1080/0031322X.2018.1493876 : there are three functional similarities between the two texts (followed by 4 similarities lol)
  • Halvor Moxnes in ISBN 978-0567677310 : there is a striking structural similarity with the influential hypothesis of a Jewsish conspiracy to take over the world in the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
  • Sindre Bangstad in ISBN 978-0367211783 : The Eurabia theory is a conspiracy theory directly analogous to the twentieth-century antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
  • Joël Kotek in Jerusalem: I think you should have titled your conference the protocols of the wise of Brussels.
  • Bruce Bawer, endorsing the thesis: At first blush, indeed, her explanation seems too simple; one wonders whether she is peddling a paranoid conspiracy theory-a Protocols of the Elders of Brussels, as it were.
  • Robert Wistrich, endorsing the thesis: At the conference I said half-joking that it was possible to call this 'the protocols of the elders of Brussels.'

  Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think it's more accurate to say that these are sources saying that Bat Ye'or's work is "as baseless and intellectually compromised as the second-most notorious antisemitic screed of the 20th century" rather than that she is literally an antisemite. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It makes sense Michael Boutboul (talk) 18:32, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely opposed to this. It’s not a work of scholarship. It’s highly selective cherrypicking from other, better collections of primary sources to produce a skewed ideological vision. Any sources which cite it as authoritative probably lose the right to be seen as reliable themselves. Other sources mention do so in order to criticise it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:45, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well it would be difficult even Bernard Lewis the most prolific and probably prominent historian on the topic cite this book: "Two other works, which emphasize the negative aspects of the Muslim record, are Bat Ye’or (pseudonym), Le Dhimmi: Profil de ľoprimé en Orient et en Afrique du nord ddepuis la conquête arabe (Paris, 1980),^[2] Michael Boutboul (talk) 22:11, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anything written by Bat Ye'or can be reasonably be assumed to be unreliable garbage. We wouldn't accept her work in the same way we wouldn't accept that of Alex Jones. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:08, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is not a valid argument for Wikipedia. Do you know of any historian who has explicitly made such a statement about Bat Ye'or? On what basis do you claim that her work is entirely unreliable? As I have shown, a significant number of historians specializing in this subject refer to The Dhimmi. Of course, others do not follow her conclusions, but it is common to have differing opinions in historical scholarship. If there are specific academic criticisms, it would be more constructive to cite them rather than making a blanket comparison. Michael Boutboul (talk) 17:15, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's keep in mind that reliability is context-dependent. Boutboul (talk · contribs), what do you want to use this source for? Alaexis_¿question? 23:42, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That the book brought a new perspective on the topic. Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:31, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If that's all you want to write you re looking at the wrong source, you would need a secondary source that said that this work brought a new perspective to the topic. You can't use a primary work to say what impact it had. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:11, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are secondary sources saying that, but to mention it, you need also to mention the primary source, don’t you? Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:23, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If a secondary sources says something about a primary source the primary source isn't needed to back it up. It can be included as a courtesy, but it's not required. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:47, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just keep in mind that you're working pretty close to WP:FRINGE material here and that means that there will likely be increased scrutiny on the sources used. Simonm223 (talk) 14:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scrutiny is fine, it will help to improve the text if necessary. Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:36, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy is the right word to express my willingness to add this book. Anyway, it seems impossible to reference it. Thanks for learning me this. Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:43, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"That the book brought a new perspective on the topic."

I can't help but feeling that your responses here have been deliberately vague and evasive. "Brought a new perspective?" What is that new perspective? What is its relevance? Is it the perspective of a conspiracy theory rooted in bigotry, as numerous commenters have very amply shown? 129.7.0.188 (talk) 16:18, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume my good faith, I was not deliberately vague and evasive. What I wanted to say is that after 1980 most books written on the subject have changed their perspective on the situation of Jews in Muslim countries; they have become less lenient about the status of Dhimmi compared to those written before 1980. But I understand the clear consensus here, I won't change it for sure :-) Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Boutboul, you quoted Leon Nemoy saying that while Bat Yeor's conclusions are questionable, the documents she cited are kosher (pun intended). By definition, these documents were not written by her and therefore you can find them in other sources and cite them. Alaexis_¿question? 21:29, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He does not say that the conclusions are questionable; rather, he states, "One might conceivably disagree here and there with Mme. Bat Ye'or's conclusions," which is slightly different in my opinion. Besides, I agree that most documents can be found elsewhere and that the article won't suffer from a lack of information if the book is not cited. However, as a courtesy, I believe we should add this book as a reference, although I understand that I won't be able to convince anyone. Thank you for your constructive intervention :-) Michael Boutboul (talk) 18:23, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This review in the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin begins "It is seldom these days that scholars have the opportunity to encounter a book that illustrates practically all the fallacies of the professional historian." Yes, some writers who have similar views about Islam like her writing and cite it, but it can't be denied that she is one of the most controversial authors in the field. She is known as an activist and does not have academic credentials. Her promotion of the Eurabia conspiracy theory is a big warning sign. We should stay away from the extremes when we select sources. Zero^talk 05:43, 2 March 2025 (UTC) Also, to say that Bernard Lewis cites it is misleading. He only mentions it once, as an example of the negative genre, and never takes any information from it. Given the almost complete overlap of topic, this is a very negative observation. If a serious scholar like Lewis ignores the content of the book, why should we do otherwise? Zero^talk 05:48, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I beg to differ. I may be wrong, but I believe we should provide readers with all relevant information, including sources that are not mainstream, as long as they are supported by prominent scholars and given appropriate weight—perhaps a line or two in the article.

Moreover, there have been at least four editions of Bernard Lewis's The Jews of Islam (1984, 1987, 2010, and 2014), both before and after Eurabia. He could have removed the reference to The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, but he did not. I believe he was fully aware of his decision to retain it, and rather than criticizing the book, he merely noted that it focuses on the negative aspects.

I also take this opportunity to thank you for prompting me to make this RS request, even though I now see it is a lost cause. Michael Boutboul (talk) 18:52, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our job is to select the best sources, not to provide readers with a range of sources from good to bad. Regarding Lewis, it is commonplace for scholars to mention sources they don't consider worth mining for their own work. Think of the thousands of books that mention Mein Kampf—it isn't a compliment to merely mention a book. It would be different if Lewis praised it. Zero^talk 03:02, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In 1984, The Dhimmi was largely unknown to most historians and had not yet been translated into English. Yet Bernard Lewis found it important enough to cite without negative comment. It has nothing to do with Mein Kampf. Forty years after its publication, it is still cited by prominent historians. But we, at Wikipedia, apparently know better than historians when it comes to determining the relevance of this book. Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:18, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your entire argument boils down to wanting to give her fringe, absolutely ahistorical views WP:UNDUE weight, @Boutboul. 73.206.161.228 (talk) 00:56, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If this book were truly ahistorical, it would not have been cited by prominent historians such as M. Cohen, B. Lewis, M. Gilbert, and R. Israeli — either to use its findings or to reference it as a significant work. Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

B. Lewis, M. Gilbert, R. Israeli and Paul Fenton are close to the pro-israeli far-right. M. Gilbert is quoted on the cover of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. R. Israeli said that «French people say they are strangers in their own country». Paul Fenton co-wrote a book with the spouse of Bat Ye'or. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t know who these historians (Cohen, Lewis, Fenton, Israeli, Gilbert) are affiliated with, but what I do know is that they are regarded as serious scholars specializing in this subject, and that is what matters on Wikipedia. They are recognized historians and have been published in academic journals and by scholarly publishers. Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:20, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At least you know now why Bat Ye'or ahistorical books are cited by those historians. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked, and it appears that Bernard Lewis was a strong supporter of the Oslo Accords. That doesn’t sound far-right, does it? And from what I’ve read, Cohen seems more left-leaning than right-leaning.

They cite The Dhimmi because they believe its content is valuable.

By the way, just after the publication of Le Dhimmi, her work was praised by Le Monde, which, as you know, is a far-right newspaper. She was supported by several left-wing figures, such as Jacques Ellul and others. Michael Boutboul (talk) 18:48, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I never said that M. Cohen is far-right. Fun fact: Bat Ye'or too supported the Oslo Accords (between befriending a Lebanese Falangist and praising Radovan Karadžić). Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 20:52, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So, if Mr. Cohen is not tainted by the infamy of being far-right, it shows that he cites The Dhimmi because he considers it a reliable work.

By the way, Mr. Cohen regards Bernard Lewis as the most prominent historian in this field. Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:00, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

«So, if Mr. Cohen is not tainted by the infamy of being far-right, it shows that he cites The Dhimmi because he considers it a reliable work.» => Your lack of acknowledgment that you mistakenly saw M. Cohen in my list of historians is worrying. M. Cohen being far-right or not is unrelated with M. Cohen considering The Dhimmi reliable or not, your logical fallacy is worrying. As previously mentioned in this section, M. Cohen said that he considers The Dhimmi misleading, your oblivion is worrying. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 19:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cohen cited the Dhimmi at least five times in his book Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages for its finding. And he does not say that The Dhimmi is misleading or can you point it out? He wrote in another book “The highly politicized debate […] makes the questions that underlie this book all the more controversial, but, at the same time, all the more begging for dispassionate inquiry." Michael Boutboul (talk) 20:50, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First sentence of https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026318400058983 : «It is seldom these days that scholar have the opportunity to encounter a book that illustrates practically all the fallacies of the professional historian.» An other negative review: https://www.jstor.org/stable/164368 Excerpt from https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2013.783969 «It would be an understatement to assert that the work of Gisèle Littman/Bat Ye'or is regarded among most qualified historians of Islam and the Middle East as failing to meet basic standards of academic research, yet the pseudo-scientific appearance of her work, replete with academic paraphernalia such as extensive footnotes and references, is central to its ability to convince readers.» In general, Bat Ye'or is a pseudohistorian who created the Eurabia narrative, her original variant is very similar to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We are not talking about Eurabia here but about The Dhimmi. We are not talking about Bat Ye’Or but about her book. Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:28, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

«We are not talking about Bat Ye’Or but about her book.» => In my previous comment, the 2 first links are about the discussed book, the third link is about all her work including the discussed book. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I had already included Vera Basch Moreen’s harsh review in the description above—who, by the way, is significantly less eminent in this field than Fenton, Lewis, or Cohen. As with any work, negative opinions exist, but most reviews, including those from leftist critics, praise this book. For instance, Le Monde stated:

"Près des deux tiers de son livre – ce qui en fait un ouvrage de référence sans équivalent en ce domaine – sont constitués par des textes de légistes islamiques relatifs aux ‘gens du Livre’ (israélites et chrétiens) et par des témoignages de chroniqueurs de toutes origines." Michael Boutboul (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That a Paris journalist working for a generalist newspaper don't see the cherry-picking in a (wannabe) history book is not surprising. That you are not afraid of Bat Ye'or ideas is worrying. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 20:52, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree—that’s why I didn’t mention this review in the request to have this source recognized as reliable.

I simply wanted to highlight that The Dhimmi has been praised by both left- and right-wing figures.

And most importantly, it is cited by many of the most prominent historians in this field. Michael Boutboul (talk) 17:47, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Doing NPP I cannot find an entry in WP:NSPORT for shooting sports. Is the website at https://esc-shooting.org a reliable source when used as a source for a gold medal in a BLP? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:49, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The sites a bit weird but it appears to be the official site of the European Shooting Confederation. It's reporting is going to be on its own members, so it should probably be handled as a WP:PRIMARY source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:42, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: Is this a question about notability, reliability, or the application of reliability to notability? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Horse Eye's Back as proof of a Gold in the European Championship. So I suppose application of reliability to notability. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:24, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it could be used for that purpose with attribution. Iljhgtn (talk) 01:34, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't show notability, as it's not independent (being the group that awarded the gold medal), but yes reliable with attribution. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:28, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given its current issue with Wikipedia (as can be seen here and here) and it being used as a source in over 1200 articles, I wonder how reliable it can be considered to be? In the RSN archives, I only found this in relation to Le Points reliability, which doesn't exactly look like it would be reliable. I know that bias in itself doesn't make it unreliable, but given the archived discussion, I'm not sure if it can be considered MREL or even GUNREL. Nobody (talk) 09:41, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NEWSORG, WP:RSOPINION, and WP:RSBIAS are all going to apply. It's editorials should be handled with caution, as with most editorials (the last discussion was about an editorial).
The fact that Le Point doesn't like us doesn't effect it's reliability. That it's complaining about Wikipedia repeating reporting from other sources, while not complaining about the original reporting, is somewhat typical of news organisations whose bias runs contra to Wikipedia (again bias/opinion etc).
The best way to judge it's reliability would be to find secondary sources that discuss any issues with Le Point. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:56, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't find many discussions online, but what I've found mostly says that: Its factual news reporting seem reliable, but their editorial/opinion pieces have centre-right bias, use circular or biased sources sometimes. Nobody (talk) 12:42, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Editorials and opinion pieces are only ever reliable for the opinion of the writer, and may not be due for inclusion (that's the WP:RSOPINION part). Whether they're political position is centre-right, right, left, up or down, doesn't effect their reliability (that's the WP:RSBIAS part). As with any source, and particularly news organisation as they tend to publish on short timeline, they may not always be reliable. Mistakes can be made or what is published in one place can be shown to be wrong by other sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:54, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with ActivelyDisinterested. I have never found any reliability issues with Le Point. Users should obviously adhere to the neutral point of view policy, taking care to ensure that content from Le Point constitutes due weight in the article. But the same applies to JDD, which has similarly been dubbed a torchon for purported Islamophobia. I would prefer to not comment on that. I tend to read articles regarding non-contentious topics, and have not noticed any reliability issues which would suggest Le Point is WP:GUNREL. Οἶδα (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The French Wikipedia community which Le Point is upset with is entirely separate from that of the English Wikipedia. The Telegraph complains that Wikipedia is biased yet it remains generally reliable, so one would have to look to the specifics of the claims to determine whether they are engaging in distortion of the facts. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:15, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Le Point is as reliable as any other news magazine. Michael Boutboul (talk) 12:11, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Le Point is a well-known major news magazine. Like many news magazines, it has a certain degree of political bias (leaning conservative) but it certainly remains generally reliable. Jeppiz (talk) 15:38, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Donald Trump, §Mass terminations of federal employees can I cite the tracker for the HIV Modeling Consortium to state the estimated number of HIV-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in February of this year? Mentioned in the acknowledgement section here, I believe the consortium are subject-matter experts. The tracker is used in articles by The Independent ([48]) and The American Prospect ([49]).

The HIV Modeling Consortium estimated the HIV-related death toll in sub-Saharan Africa at 14,872 adults and 1,582 children in the one month after Trump's USAID funding freeze in January 2025.^[1]

I have no expertise in this area and documentation is hard to find. A day's research found that in June 2024, the South African Medical Research Council said the national cause of death reporting system has been unusable since 2014 and that HIV/AIDS deaths are underreported. So we don't have South African death certificates for reference. African HIV needs in 2025 far exceeded other continents. Over the years we've had several mathematical models of HIV in South Africa. In the past month we had death toll estimates by percentage of cuts (deaths in 90 days deaths in 10 years), or warnings what would happen if HIV aid were completely cut off. NYT explains that US State Department waivers didn't take effect, resulting in a two week pause as of last month. Please let me know if I can be of assistance.

-SusanLesch (talk) 21:51, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can definitely cite it. A Google Scholar search pulls up a large number of peer-reviewed works in well-respected journals from researchers who are either associated with the consortium or refer to them positively. Some of their work is referenced by the World Health Organization. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:03, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An update: I see that I wasn't clear enough in my response, as I used a pronoun, "it," that didn't have a clear referent. By "it," I was referring to the HIV Modelling Consortium and its work. I assumed that the tracker was created by the HIV Modelling Consortium, but it turns out that that's not accurate, though it could easily be the case that the person(s) who created the tracker are also members of the consortium. It's hard to tell, since the tracker's website does not identify who created it, and the consortium's website does not list everyone in its network of affiliates (and I don't know how large that network is, it's an international consortium).

So my sense of the tracker's reliability is not as strong as it was when I thought it was produced under the consortium's aegis. That said, I'm still inclined to see the tracker as a reliable source. I was able to find this field note article about the tracker's creation / revision. "Members of the HIV modelling community, including those affiliated with the HIV Modelling Consortium, independently assessed the calculations, refined assumptions and incorporated the latest available data. ... This iterative refinement process was made possible by the concerted and collaborative efforts of HIV modellers, clinicians, public health professionals and web developers. It has also been updated in response to direct requests from U.S. congressional staffers to add additional information and impact numbers." The authors of that field note likely all have relevant expertise (I only checked the first author, and she does; I'll leave it to others to look up the rest). If information from the tracker is used, its use should be attributed.

Susan, here's another source that you may find helpful: https://www.unaids.org/en/topic/PEPFAR_impact - "If PEPFAR were permanently halted, UNAIDS estimates that there would be an estimated additional 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths, 3.4 million AIDS orphans, 350,000 new HIV infections among children and an additional 8.7 million adult new infections by 2029 – making ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 impossible." FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:45, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering, why are we questioning the tracker? The consortium website links to Projects. There the first link redirects to the tracker, and lead is Brooke Nichols. Right there, I'd say it is safe to cite the tracker as the project is presented under consortium auspices. The site "https://www.impactcounter.com/" credits Nichols and its "Portfolio" is listed. The Independent article reports the death toll citing the tracker (not the consortium). WP:INDYUK says the paper is reliable and adds "some editors advise caution for articles published after [March 2016]" when it went online. This article says the tracker is "compiled by" the consortium. What's the problem? -SusanLesch (talk) 19:13, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you had no questions, why did you start a topic at the RSN about it? I already pointed out on the article's talk page that Nichols is involved in the tracker's creation/refinement, and also linked to both her Google Scholar and university profiles to note her expertise, and twice linked to the JAIS field note about the tracker with her as the lead author, so I'm not sure why you're telling me about her as if I didn't know. I had already looked at impactcounter.com; she is its co-creator. The PEPFAR tracker itself notes "Built by impactcounter.com", not by the Consortium, which doesn't even have the current URL for the tracker on its website. (FWIW, there's an analogous TB tracker looking at the effect of the funding freeze on TB deaths, and Nichols is involved there too.) I also don't understand why you're asking what the problem is when I clearly said that I'm still inclined to see the tracker as a reliable source. I've been trying to help you, but if you haven't found my responses helpful or if you don't want my help, OK. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

-SusanLesch (talk) 19:34, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, this query is not an appropriate use of this noticeboard. This is under active discussion at talk:Donald Trump. The two editors involved in this thread are involved there. This thread should be archived. Riposte97 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:53, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and removed my last post. For the sake of this noticeboard's archive, FactOrOpinion, a statement that both the consortium and the tracker are reliable sources in this context will help. I was asking you why we don't have such a statement here yet. I'll add that while I appreciate your position and help, it is probably best in the interest of neutrality if editors who answer questions on this noticeboard would refrain from participation in the original context. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:31, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought what I said about the Consortium's reliability (in my first comment) and tracker's reliability (in my second comment) would have been enough. But since you've twice asked me to sum up both in a single comment, I've thought further about what to say about each, drawing on my current understanding, which is now informed by more investigation of the tracker. You may not be happy with some of what I say.

As WP:RSCONTEXT notes, reliability depends on how a source is used. I think the Consortium's own website and formal publications are going to be reliable for almost any content that an editor would reasonably want source to them. On the other hand, I think that the impactcounter website is only going to be reliable for some of the content that an editor might reasonably want to source to it: some of the content on their methodology page should be reliable, but the numbers shown on their counter page aren't particularly reliable right now, because that latter page is making claims about deaths that "have occurred" (past tense) based on several assumptions that are either inaccurate (e.g., it uses a linear model starting on day 1, when they acknowledge in their Journal of the International AIDS Society field note — linked in my second comment above — that "There may be a 1-month lag between the funding freeze and when deaths begin, given the time required for viral rebound"; that means it should be a piecewise function even if both parts are linear, and the second piece might not be) or uncertain (e.g., it assumes a 3 month pause in funding, and they note that there are several unknowns that would affect the model). They say that the model has undergone 127 updates and will continue to be updated. All of this will affect the numbers shown in the tracker on any given day and therefore affects its reliability. A month ago their estimates were higher. Their estimates should become more reliable over time, but I wouldn't use them right now, and I suspect that news sources reporting those numbers aren't assessing how reliable the numbers are. I certainly wouldn't add the text you added here. But you could say something like: "One group with expertise in infectious disease modeling estimated that if the PEPFAR funding were resumed but resulted in just a 3 month interruption in patients' antiretroviral therapy, it would result in 159,000 excess deaths during the following year (measured from the day the funding was cut). UNAIDS estimated that "If PEPFAR were permanently halted, ... there would be an estimated additional 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths, 3.4 million AIDS orphans, 350,000 new HIV infections among children and an additional 8.7 million adult new infections by 2029 – making ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 impossible." (citing the first sentence to the impactcounter methodology page and the second to the UNAIDS page I gave you in my second comment).

There's no PAG or RSN expectation that "editors who answer questions on this noticeboard ... refrain from participation in the original context." More than once, I've chosen to comment on a talk page after someone introduces an issue elsewhere (RSN, BLPN, Teahouse, ...), and I'm not alone in that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for coming up with a statement. I'm afraid the word count makes it a nonstarter and WP:UNDUE. Yes, I agree my first try wasn't good! -SusanLesch (talk) 19:31, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't looked at the article as a whole, so wasn't trying to assess what's DUE. I was only noting what kinds of WP text might be acceptable. I saw the text that you've proposed in the RfC you just opened. While I support the goal of introducing text into the article about health and death effects of the funding pause / USAID layoffs / international contract freeze (the effects have been horrendous, heartless, short-sighted, ..., and it's not as if HIV will be the only source of excess deaths), I can't support the text you're proposing, for the reasons I already laid out. I'll post my !vote later. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:34, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this ok and supported by community? To delete whole sections in medical-related articles because sources are older than 5 years. Some examples:

Social-anxiety disorder, section Mechanisms diff;

Stress (biology), section Chronic disease diff

Anti-inflammatory, section Dietary patterns diff;

I tried to discuss this on the article talk page, but user Zefr (who deleted) always provide 2 arguments:

1) sources are older than 5 years . But I think that this is not a requirement in the rules, but an "ideal option", and applies primarily to adding new information, or when you need to choose a point of view from two equally authoritative sources. Many wiki articles were created and filled more than 10 years ago and have been little updated since then. Does this mean that all this information should be deleted? Perhaps in such cases it is worth setting a template, that the information may be outdated?

2) Even if source is review or meta, Zefr says it has "weak" evidence, so not medrs. But I think, it's not editor's competency to judge weakness of evidence, if source is secondary and not from predatory journal or non-scientific source its medrs and can be used.

The difficulty is also that editor usually deletes the entire section, which contains both primary or non-reliable and secondary reliable sources (but in the comment mentions the primary ones as the reason).

That's why I decided to draw the community's attention. Perhaps there are more experienced members who can help sort out the issue. Zemleroika11 (talk) 17:57, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the RSN is the right place to raise this issue, as you're not asking about the reliability of a specific source. I see that Zefr is a very experienced editor, edits a lot of articles about biomedical content, and even has some MEDRS tutorials for new editors on their talk page. So I suggest that you first pursue the general issue on Zefr's talk page, and if that doesn't resolve it, you could ask about it on the WikiProject Medicine talk page. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:42, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You comment appear more interested in Zefr's behaviour than in the reliability of any particular source. As to the aspects that are about reliability WP:AGEMATTERS, but the point of that is that new sources make old sources outdated. An old source saying that fevers can be caused by infection would be fine, an old source saying leaches were a good way of treating fevers will have been outdated by newer sources. But in MEDRS content I could see that old sources present more of an issue than if other areas. I would suggest, as FactOrOpinion has, that you talk with Zefr about the issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:01, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is that the situation does not affect one or several sources. But it affects recurring questions to sources, so my goal was to find out the general view of the community on such a question. Because it is obvious to me that I and Zefr interpret the same guidelines differently, and maybe I am missing something in the rules? I have already talked about this with Zefr on talk pages, and the discussion is not going anywhere. For example, I recently suggested a new source for the article Stress (biology) https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1074-7613%2821%2900357-5

Haykin H, Rolls A. The neuroimmune response during stress: A physiological perspective. Immunity. 2021 Sep 14;54(9):1933-1947. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2021.08.023. PMID: 34525336; PMCID: PMC7615352.

and Zefr rejected it with agryment type 2 "is based entirely on in vitro and early-stage lab research (a reason why it's published in Immunity rather than a rigorous clinical journal), and therefore is a source with preliminary information at the lowest level of evidence-quality - see WP:MEDASSESS, bottom of left pyramid. The article needs better review sources."

But i see demand in the guideline for secondary sources, and this review is secondary and in reliable journale. No demand for specific research review links to. Moreover, stress is not a disease and it is not about treatment, but about the patterns of the body’s functioning. Zemleroika11 (talk) 17:21, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can of course open separate requests for all the sources under discussion. Another point is that I don't particularly support adding new information with sources older than 5-10 years, but if it is in the article, then I am against deleting it without more serious reasons than the age of the source, especially if an entire subsection is deleted. And this is also the context of the question, is it worth bringing questions in this context here or is this also more relevant to another dashboard? Zemleroika11 (talk) 17:29, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Medical details are held to a higher standard than other content, see WP:MEDRS. If a source is only based on early research that would appear to be a problem. If you asking about policy interpretation I would suggest WT:RS or as this medical content WT:MEDRS. This appears to be a content dispute over interpretation so I don't think going other eavh source will help. This board is only for advice so it can't solve such disputes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:35, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. thanks Zemleroika11 (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of the four places that have been suggested to pursue this (Zefr's talk page, WT:MED, WT:MEDRS and WT:RS), I suggest starting with one of the first three, and if you choose WT:MED or WT:MEDRS, I again suggest that you ping Zefr in your comment instead of just noting their name. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:55, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I haven't looked at the specific cases here, but in general a "large scale deletion" of outdated and/or unreliable content is fine - indeed excellent - if what replaces it is a concise summary of more up-to-date high-quality sourcing. This is not an unusual pattern of improvement for WP:Biomedical content. Specific cases are better raised at WT:MED or on the article in question's Talk page. Bon courage (talk) 17:46, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  if what replaces it is a concise summary of more up-to-date high-quality sourcing.

  Nothing replaces it unfortunately Zemleroika11 (talk) 23:53, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In the first case I looked at, that's because, as the edit summary says, the entire section was based on conjecture and small animal models. Such claims are often wrong. I think actually usually wrong. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:52, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you mean claims based on small animal studies are wrong or claim that section was based on it is wrong? In fact, there were secondary sources in the section, and I would have preferred that their age be marked in the template for updating, but they would not be deleted immediately. Zemleroika11 (talk) 16:28, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• There is absolutely no policy I'm aware of saying that sources older than five years should be presumptively removed from articles without anybody bothering to come up with a reason why the content is bad. I am willing to extend some benefit of the doubt to someone who is trying to do an ambitious rewrite or update, but just drive-by blanking sections out of articles with no explanation is disruptive. jp×g🗯️ 12:19, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Looking at the summaries provided by the edits I don't believe anyone has edited in that way or even suggested it, rather there where other issues with the content. Rather the sources were primary or lab studies that don't match the WP:MEDRS guideline, that were also old. So there were reason given, and noone was drive by blanking. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Looking at this diff it looks like there is a whole lot of baby. Here is some stuff that was getting taken out due to being outdated:

  There are many studies investigating neural bases of social anxiety disorder.

  M. S. Marcin; C. B. Nemeroff (2003). "The neurobiology of social anxiety disorder:the relevance of fear and anxiety". Acta Psychiatr Scand. 108 (417): 51–64. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0447.108.s417.4.x. PMID 12950436. S2CID 23732609.

  Mathew SJ, Coplan JD, Gorman JM (2001). "Neurobiological Mechanisms of Social Anxiety Disorder". Am J Psychiatry. 158 (10): 1558–1567. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.158.10.1558. PMID 11578981. S2CID 11073595.

  Did there stop being many studies?

  Sociability is closely tied to dopaminergic neurotransmission.

  Rammsayer T. H. (1998). "Extraversion and dopamine: Individual differences in response to changes in dopaminergic activity as a possible biological basis of extraversion". European Psychologist. 3 (1): 37–50. doi:10.1027/1016-9040.3.1.37 (inactive 1 November 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)

  Other research shows that the binding affinity of dopamine D2 receptors in the striatum of people with social anxiety is lower than in controls.

  Franklin R. Schneier, M.D.; Michael R. Liebowitz, M.D.; Anissa Abi-Dargham, M.D.; Yolanda Zea-Ponce; Shu-Hsing Lin; Marc Laruelle, M.D. (2000). "Low Dopamine D2 Receptor Binding Potential in Social Phobia". Am J Psychiatry. 157 (3): 457–459. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.157.3.457. PMID 10698826.

  I understand that scientific consensus can change over time, but it doesn't always do that for everything, and if there's no evidence that there was anything wrong or missing from this study, I don't really get why it has to be culled. Even for medical articles, we don't have a presumption of guilt that starts after some number of years; if that were the case, we could just run an bot to blank every medical article every five years and sit down and rewrite them from scratch. jp×g🗯️ 13:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Pinging @Zefr as the editor involved. I still don't think that the RSN is the right venue for this discussion, but they should be alerted to its existence. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:27, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, Christ, I thought they had commented in here. Yes, they should be pinged, thank you for doing this. jp×g🗯️ 14:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I notified about discussion in reply here Zemleroika11 (talk) 16:23, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Again there hasn't been any blanking after five years, this just seems to be a misrepresentation by the OP. So no bot or argument against it is needed. Zefr gave other reasons in their edit summaries. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:27, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This diff removed two studies from 2022 and one from 2021, so there was a blanking after three years. jp×g🗯️ 14:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  They mentioned "outdated" or "no medrs", at talk pages they clarified about 5 years.

  And in the first diff for example they deleted 2007 meta-analysis (number 97 in list), while edit summaries states "lab and pilot studies" Zemleroika11 (talk) 16:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't stated anywhere on WP:RSPYT, so I'm wondering if I can cite a YouTube channel's creation date? That can't be changed and isn't self-published. 173.8.54.145 (talk) 13:55, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that would probably be compliant with WP:PRIMARY, as long as it's simply used for nothing other than verifying the subject's own start date. Sergecross73 msg me 14:33, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

yes. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 16:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That seems reasonable to me. Canterbury Tail talk 16:39, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Self-published sources such as YouTube are reliable in a limited way for statements about the publisher, see WP:ABOUTSELF. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:37, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As long as it's clearly indicated that it is the current listed channel creation date, and not the date a person first joined YouTube. It's not unheard of for people to delete and recreate channels. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Badly sourced. Source 1, a Vietnames newspaper - I looked at the Wayback machine and the source is full of woo. Source 7 also seems useless. Wonders in the Sky is a good source.[50], I think. Doug Weller talk 08:54, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tinh Hoa have a YouTube channel as well, using autotranslation as best I can I don't believe they should be considered a reliable source. Maybe someone from the Vietname project would know more. The only thing it supports is the translation, which could surely be found in a better source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:04, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recently created a page where I used OTTplay and Hindustan Times as sources, but the information I added was removed [51], and OTTplay was tagged as "unreliable." I am aware that a prior discussion on OTTplay’s reliability took place, but it did not provide a clear conclusion on whether OTTplay should be considered a reliable source Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force/Archive 8 I believe both OTTplay and Hindustan Times should be considered reliable sources, especially given their ownership under HT Media, a well-established Indian media conglomerate with a strong track record in journalism and digital innovation. AShiv1212 (talk) 17:55, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hindustan Times is an established news organisation, so per WP:NEWSORG it should be considered relatively reliable. The usual points about opinion pieces (WP:RSOPINION) and bias (WP:RSBIAS) apply. As a Indian news organisation articles that are overly positive about a subject should be handled with caution, see WP:NEWSORGINDIA. Hindustan Times isn't mentioned in the diff you provided, does it relate to a different edit?
I'm slightly confused by OTTPlay, are they a streaming platform that also reports on what they stream? If so that would make them WP:PRIMARY. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:50, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Yes, my question is about OTTplay." AShiv1212 (talk) 19:39, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi LCU ActivelyDisinterested, thanks for your thoughtful comment! I agree that Hindustan Times is generally reliable under WP:NEWSORG, with the usual cautions about opinion pieces (WP:RSOPINION) and potential bias (WP:RSBIAS), especially as an Indian outlet (WP:NEWSORGINDIA). I mentioned it because OTTplay is operated by HT Media Labs, a subsidiary of HT Media (the parent of Hindustan Times), and I think this tie-in is relevant. Sorry if the diff context was unclear—it’s not directly about Hindustan Times but rather OTTplay’s reliability, which I’m trying to establish here.

You’re spot on about OTTplay being confusing—it’s an OTT aggregator (launched in 2020) that bundles subscriptions to 35+ streaming platforms like SonyLIV and Zee5, while also publishing editorial content like reviews and recommendations. I agree that when it reports on its own services, it’s WP:PRIMARY, suitable for basic facts (e.g., “OTTplay offers X platform”) under WP:ABOUTSELF. But I’d argue it’s more than just a primary source. Its editorial content benefits from HT Media’s long-standing journalistic reputation, which suggests some level of oversight and credibility—more than you’d expect from a standalone commercial platform. This connection to a WP:NEWSORG-compliant entity like HT Media gives OTTplay a boost, even if it’s not on the same level as Hindustan Times itself.

On the bias concern (WP:RSBIAS), its commercial nature as a streaming service is a valid point, but HT Media’s involvement mitigates this somewhat—unlike purely self-published sources, it’s tied to a media group with editorial standards. For example, its reviews could be used as attributed opinions (WP:RSOPINION) rather than dismissed outright. User complaints (e.g., on Trustpilot) seem to focus on service issues, not the accuracy of its content, so I don’t think that undermines its reliability as a source.

I’m suggesting OTTplay is reliable for self-descriptive facts about its operations (with attribution) and that its editorial output has some usability, thanks to HT Media’s backing. Does this framing work for you, or do you see the commercial aspect as too big a hurdle? Looking forward to your take! AShiv1212 (talk) 20:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a strange one, as I would usually be careful of commercial self-interest in this situation. But in this case OTTPlay are being negative about something they're streaming, so it can hardly be promotional. Given it's setup and the other comments at the ITCF I would at least consider them marginally reliable if used with attribution. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:37, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the detailed inputs, ActivelyDisinterested! I appreciate the clarification on OTTplay’s unique position. I agree that its commercial tie-in warrants caution, but the HT Media backing and the negative tone in some reviews (as you noted) do support a marginally reliable status with attribution, per WP:MREL. I’ll use OTTplay for self-descriptive facts and attributed opinions going forward. Hindustan Times, with its established WP:NEWSORG standing, remains a solid source with the usual bias checks (WP:RSBIAS, WP:NEWSORGINDIA). Thanks for helping refine this—let me know if further adjustments are needed! AShiv1212 (talk) 05:05, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While I’ve agreed with OTTplay being marginally reliable per WP:MREL, I feel it’d be helpful to involve more Indian editors, especially from South India, as they might have deeper insights into OTTplay’s credibility due to its regional focus (like its Changemakers Awards for Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam cinema). Anyone with factual inputs is welcome to join the discussion! AShiv1212 (talk) 05:32, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to post a notification at ICTF for that exact reason, but I saw you had already raised the issue there. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:35, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can the background-check website Nuwber.com (accessible from the US only) be considered a reliable source for birth dates?  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:18, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No. Quite apart from anything else it "collect(s) data from multiple public records and consumer databases". The latter are effectively WP:UGC and will be unreliable, and all of them can be wrong or out of date. Black Kite (talk) 09:45, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Someone's birth date can have been entered incorrectly, but it is hard to see how it can be out of date.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:44, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This seems awfully close to WP:BLPPRIMARY, as they are likely to have collected a lot of the data from primary sources. Separately dates of birth should have been widely published (WP:DOB), so if this is the only source for the date then it shouldn't be included. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:40, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm writing about OFTV (see my draft). Is this interview in TheThings.com usable for the claim that the two series of This is Fire were won by Kazumi and Nathan Webb (baseball)?--Launchballer 11:57, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was previously discussed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 437#thethings.com and it's owner Valnet has been discussed many time[52]. It doesn't look like a great source, especially for contentious details, but it should be reliable for the results of This is Fire. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:27, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article on TESCREAL currently uses two self-published sources, one by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute and another by James Hughes of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Both are used to attack authors and critics, not to present any kind of new content that contributes to the subject in any meaningful way. In fact, it's just the opposite. Pethokoukis of AEI attacks science fiction author Charles Stross for daring to criticize billionaires in Scientific American, as if Stross had committed the worst kind of unforgivable sin (he didn't). Hughes, on the other hand, self-publishes in the online social journal Medium while attacking the authors by saying things they never said (espousing "left-wing conspiracy theories") and accusing them of not knowing what they are talking about (which is ridiculous, as the authors are experts). Both subjects of the attacks have published their work through the proper channels, including peer review and an editorial board, but neither of the attackers (Pethokoukis and Hughes) have had to do so. This feels unbalanced, unfair, and unreliable. What to do? Viriditas (talk) 10:48, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like a content dispute, have you tried discussing it in the article's talk page? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:36, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This material isn’t part of any content dispute. I’m asking for outside opinion on the reliable sources noticeboard about the use of two self-published think tank sources. Viriditas (talk) 18:11, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. The only parts from Pethokoukis and Hughes in the article are"James Pethokoukis, of the American Enterprise Institute, disagrees with criticizing proponents of TESCREAL. He argues that the tech billionaires criticized in a Scientific American article for allegedly espousing TESCREAL have significantly advanced society."[53] and "In the blog for the technoprogressive Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Eli Sennesh and James Hughes have argued that TESCREAL is a left-wing conspiracy theory that groups disparate philosophies together without understanding their mutually exclusive tenets."[54]. If this is the only content then they sources would be reliable for them in a WP:PRIMARY way. There doesn't seem to be a BLP issue here, so WP:BLPSPS wouldn't apply, but you could ask on WP:BLPN if you disagree.
Whether the opinions of these two people are WP:DUE for inclusion in the article is a NPOV issue that is better discussed on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:10, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has been discussed on the talk page, at great length and insistent repetition. jp×g🗯️ 01:36, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven’t discussed this specific topic anywhere. According to the talk page archives, it was discussed in July 2024. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to seek outside input into this subject, particularly one I wasn’t aware of and didn’t participate in. Viriditas (talk) 03:54, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, your signature appears on the talk page 42 times, nearly all of them arguing against consensus to include your preferred sources. jp×g🗯️ 06:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’m sorry you feel that way. Once again, you’ve distracted from the topic under discussion. This isn’t about me. I haven’t discussed this specific topic anywhere, and it has nothing to do with any other discussion. If you have something constructive to offer about Pethokoukis and Hughes I would love to hear it, but please stop trying to derail every discussion by talking about me instead. Viriditas (talk) 01:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i think saying it’s an attack piece would indicate a blp vio. however, the sourcing is more discussing the philosophies. authors aren’t attacking each other, just ideas so seems like WP:CRYBLP.

wrt to neutrality i think they clearly aren’t neutral and need to be attributed (which they are). dueness may also be a concern but these are common criticisms against folks talking about TESCREAL User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:15, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly after reviewing the academic literature on TESCREAL (which didn't take long) I'd say that Sennesh and Hughes are probably honestly correct and Wikipedia shouldn't have a page for TESCREAL at all. I suggested, at article talk, redirecting it to The Californian Ideology rather than outright deletion because it honestly just seems like new branding for the ideological material explored in that essay. Simonm223 (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It’s a genuinely interesting suggestion and I like your out of the box approach. But as the primary contributor to TCI, I don’t see the direct connection, but I do see some overlap with libertarian influences, but it’s really an entirely different subject. TCI seeks to explain some aspects of a shared phenomenon, namely the impact of political philosophy on the formation of the early internet. Tescrealism, while sharing similar concerns about ideological influence, is about the ideas behind the quest for AGI, how the bundle helps to explain this quest, and how transhumanism is the root philosophy that spawned all the others as variations of its own original idea. Tescrealism attempts to provide a unified explanation for all of these ideas behind AGI. Torres: "If you want to understand the origins of the race to build AGI, if you want to understand where these companies came from in the first place, a complete explanation requires reference to seven ideologies." So you see, it's a very different topic, but in solidarity with TCI at some level. Viriditas (talk) 04:07, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the video games website Noisy Pixel a reliable source? I've used an article from it in a draft I'm working on (specifically this article), in which it supports information regarding the Gameplay section, but this website has not been discussed before in terms of whether it's reliable or not. SleepDeprivedGinger (talk) 17:46, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The video game project list it as unreliable, (see WP:VG/S#Unreliable sources) after this discussion in mid-2023. I've posted a notification on the project talk page asking for additional opinions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:30, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

americanrhetoric.com   We have several hundred cites to American Rhetoric. I saw this one and noticed a few things, other than the annoying autoplay music (which is copyright with no sign of license). First, no evidence of any kind of review. Second, misleading copyright: "U.S. Copyright Status: This text = Property of AmericanRhetoric.com. Audio = Public Domain." That's not true. In many cases the website is used to source a claim that a speech is included in the website's Top 100 speeches list. This is an easy case - "listed at #X by RandomList, source RandomList" can generally be nuked on sight unless the list is notable, but in some cases we are using it as a source for the content of the speech, which seems problematic given the lack of authority and the site's claim on another page that content is included under fair use. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:49, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While it might be a fun website to explore, it seems like something akin to a fan site. Who decided what to include? While I would generally trust such a site to accurately quote various speeches, I would presume we could find better sources in all cases. For example, I looked at the Ben Franklin use. It simply quotes text of a speech.[55] As such I presume we could find a better source. So long as it's only being used as a reference for quotes from a speech I would flag it with better source needed. I can't see any reason to claim a speech is notable based on the claims of that site. Such claims would be undue. Springee (talk) 18:05, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there are better sources for some content, and - remarkably - none at all for some others, when quoted, which indicates that some of them might be mistranscribed. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:51, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just a reminder that if there are copyright violations then it should never be linked to (WP:ELNEVER). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:03, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to the external links noticeboard per AD

External links have there own noticeboard WP:External links/Noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:24, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks, I'll place it there. FortunateSons (talk) 10:25, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to source On Safari (2000 game show), and there is some useful information in the book This Is Scotland: The First Fifty Years of Scottish Television, written by essentially a former employee of the television studio who decided to write a book chronicling its first 50 years. Not necessarily all of the information is from his personal experience, but it seems fairly reliable to me, as some of it is, and he could be considered somewhat an expert on the topic from having been there. Does anyone know if there is any way I can use this source? I think it's likely it has some information that is not featured in any other place, because this person has inside information on the operations of the company itself. Mrfoogles (talk) 16:04, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I've managed to find Ukgameshows.com, which has a staff editor and I think a reasonable claim at a reputation for reliability, so I've used that. The book, I think, would still be useful, though. Mrfoogles (talk) 16:13, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SPS covers self-publishes sources, whih states that it should come from an author whose "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.", although reliability could be shown with WP:USEBYOTHERS.
Although Jeff Holmes[56] has written several works I don't think there's anything to show his work would be generally considered reliable by the wording of WP:SPS, and I'm not finding any other reliable sources citing "This Is Scotland: The First Fifty Years of Scottish Television" as a source. As Holmes has a working background in the area there's a weak argument that the work could be reliable, but I wouldn't suggest relying on it to much. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion here: Talk:Claus_Spreckels#Source_conflict_in_1900_Puerto_Rican_migrant_incident

Background: One of the sections in the article on 19th-century Hawaii and California industrialist Claus Spreckels, Claus_Spreckels#Coercion_of_Puerto_Rican_laborers, concerns an incident in which he was reported as being connected with the coercive trafficking of a group of laborers from Puerto Rico to Hawaii. Based on a prior content dispute, I've been rewriting that part of the article based on current scholarly sources. In the process, I've come across an instance of WP:CONFLICTINGSOURCES between multiple, scholarly secondary sources concerning whether it was Claus Spreckels or the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (a group Spreckels was not part of) who was behind the recruitment and transport of these laborers. I've stated both possibilities on the article page, but based on my reading, I think Spreckels involvement can be demonstrated conclusively to be false, in which case that incident doesn't belong in that article at all, or at most as a footnote. More details on the talk page linked to above. My thought is to remove that part of the article and move it to a more appropriate page, but I'm soliciting other opinions before doing so. Peter G Werner (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to describe the conflict between reliable sources is an NPOV matter rather than one of verification. Unless of course there is a reliable source saying that the assertion is false. WP:AGEMATTERS could be relevant, if the only sources making the claim are from the original time period and modern sources disagree. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:54, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify WP:V states "Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it." (bolding added). It's silent on excluding content as you can only verify content that is already in an article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:59, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I really do think the question is about factual accuracy between conflicting but otherwise-good sources rather than neutrality, which is why I posted it here. The sources that I'm using are secondary ones, mostly from the last 25 years, with the oldest one going back to 1984. One can find both secondary and primary sources that name either HSPA or Claus Spreckels, though the majority of primary and secondary ones that I'm aware of (and I've done a lot of reading now on this topic) say the former. I'll note that the following statement is in one of the guidelines: , WP:These are not original research#Conflict between sources states: "If reliable sources exist that show that another apparently reliable source is demonstrably factually incorrect, the factually incorrect material should be removed." I think this source conflict meets that criterion, but I'm double checking others opinions on the matter. Peter G Werner (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

English version has recently started having this line "This article is translated by generative AI and edited by The Korea Times." at the bottom. Under normal circumstances, both the Korean and English versions of The korean Times is considered a good source, but they've started to use AI that is overseen by a real person, rather than having a real person translate their Korean articles into English. This gives me a bit of pause, as ascribing a direct quote to someone based on an AI translation feels sketchy.

More and more mainstream reliable foreign news sources may start using generative AI to translate with oversight by real people, and there should be some policy on this. Before, with a proper human translation you could be sure. Now we're not sure how many articles that the human editor is looking at or how deeply.

Below is the same article, one on the original Korean language version of their site, and the other the Korean original.

• ‘소녀상 모욕’ 미 유튜버,“한국은 미국의 속국”
• American YouTuber Johnny Somali sparks outrage in trial, calls Korea a US vassal state (AI translation)

Harizotoh9 (talk) 21:05, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tentatively, translation with human oversight is the one place that I don't mind seeing more AI. I've done that kind of work with AI outside of Wikipedia and generally find it very useful. In some ways it's a step up for anyone who would otherwise be pasting the original into Google Translate, which already uses very similar technology. There's still a chance of hallucinations, but because of the nature of translation as a task, you can always refer to the original and confirm whether something is correct. In my experience, it's much faster to get a first draft of an article translation with an LLM and then read over it side by side with the original to check for discrepancies than it would be to come up with an original translation all by myself. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:20, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This source has been discussed here twice: 338, 463. The source is used in several articles, most notably List of Roblox games. Not sure if it is reliable or not...

There are four options:

1. Reliable
2. Situational
3. Unreliable
4. Deprecate

brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 00:02, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Has there been some new disagreement, discussion, or usage that requires a RFC? The prior discussions seem to suggest this is a marginal source, but possibly usable in it's area. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

not sure. however, one thing i noticed is that the source highlighting thing that i am using used to mark beebom yellow, butit suddenly changed from red. it has been recognised by forbes, which is unreliable if im not wrong, but ngl i think it has a strong editorial, so its more of a little confusifying and not only will i know if its reliable or not, but other people can refer to the RSP when they see beebom as a source. just saying brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 06:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The RSP is meant to be a log of sources that have been regularly discussed here, so starting a RFC just so a source can be added to the RSP is back to front. The source highlighters aren't control by this noticeboard, you would need to discuss any changes with whichever editor created the one you are using. I don't think either of the popular ones just read the RSP.
If you believe the quality of the source has changed then the first thing to do would be to just start a new discussion on it presenting your case. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:36, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ok… well i can say that it has been used extensively in several wikipedia articles (you can search for Beebom and you should get a list) brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 00:32, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! In the Farmer's Almanac for 2025 on page 86, there is some information related to the Slide Mountain (the one in Nevada) avalanche in 1983. The text in question is not a prediction or advertisement, but I would still want to know if it would be considered reliable. Hurricane Wind and Fire (talk) 03:59, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think as long as "prediction or advertisement" are not what is being cited of course, then yes, I do not know of any clear issues or concerns which are raised about the reliability of this source. Iljhgtn (talk) 12:40, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Hurricane Wind and Fire (talk) 14:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In this instance, I would understand if the avalanche was not talked about in enough depth to be considered reliable. Even in that case, I would still appreciate it if I knew the book was reliable for other topics. Hurricane Wind and Fire (talk) 04:12, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we consider Christian Broadcasting Network news reports reliable? Specifically, it's being used in an infobox for a contentious claim in the rather contentious article 2025 massacres of Syrian Alawites. (I think there might be other problematic sourcing there too.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:13, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, should be considered reliable unless we have evidence of their being false or deliberately misleading in their reporting. I think they will have bias of course in covering news from a Christian perspective, which may make some subjects need extra sources or additional considerations at most, but otherwise I think they are reliable and even where bias is present they are not unreliable. Iljhgtn (talk) 12:42, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

False or deliberately misleading is generally the bar for deprecation, they can be above that bar and still not be generally reliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:06, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CBN has multiple programs, and you haven't said how it'll be used, so this question is too broad. But fundamentally, it's an extension of founder Pat Robertson and his/the network's flagship program The 700 Club. For just a taste of why it's not suitable for statements of fact, see Pat Robertson controversies. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was previously discussed in 2021, see WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 343#CBN - Christian Broadcasting Network for reference. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:37, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Funny. I opened that thread and have no memory of it! :) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:07, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Though it looks like it was just a discussion, and not an RfC. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we feel an RfC is necessary? It looks like the discussion was pretty clear regarding how to handle the reliability of the source and like everyone pretty much agreed. Simonm223 (talk) 16:02, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFCs are the exception not the rule, most questions are (and should be) resolved by simple discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:19, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see a careful review of the evidence against Christian Broadcasting Network to make its status clear, and if an RfC is necessary, then it is. Though I am not saying we are there yet. Iljhgtn (talk) 01:45, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Its certainly not generally reliable, while there are topic areas I would consider it reliable for in this context I would attribute if used at all and strongly prefer a stronger source. I would also avoid its use for BLP other than ABOUTSELF. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:06, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's a partisan political organization with often fringe views. Harizotoh9 (talk) 12:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be very careful with it, and I certainly wouldn't use it for BLPs or indeed any contentious topic. The issue I remember having with it was when it was reprinting press releases from various wacky organisations like the Discovery Institute and Family Watch International without it being clear what they were, thus leading editors to claim they could source clearly untrue statements using CBN. Black Kite (talk) 13:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RealClearInvestigations (dot com) is the in-house investigative reporting side of WP:RealClearPolitics. It's being used as a source on several articles, including Motte-and-bailey fallacy, Redlining, Defund the police, Academic Freedom Alliance, and Dan Polster. Is it reliable for claims of fact? Geogene (talk) 18:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How 'red flag' are the claims? I think this is a case where we need to see the claim in question and the supporting article before deciding. I would be careful about claims that are on the red side if that is the source that is used to establish weight or make a surprising claim. Springee (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the Redlining article as an example I would probably remove it since it's one of two sources and all it's doing is saying "the AJC said...". The other source is the AJC. In such a case the source is reliable but also redundant. However, it seems more appropriate as used in the Defund example. It's presented as an attributed claim relevant to the subject. The AFA example is a simple claim that an organization has about 400 members. Springee (talk) 19:45, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's a highly partisan source which mostly aggregates reporting from other outlets. I think Paul Sperry is the only author who publishes original content, and he's a conspiracy theorist. GordonGlottal (talk) 20:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would put it in the yellow bucket. We do use a number of other partisan sources, a number more biased than this one, but we really should be looking to see what claim is being supported vs just outright stating a source isn't acceptable. The strong bias would make it a poor choice for many political claims. However, in the instances I found the bias wasn't an issue. Springee (talk) 21:06, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.racetothewh.com/

Can it be used for election lean ratings similarly to how Sabato's Crystal Ball, Cook Political Report or Inside Elections are used in election articles? I was not able to find any previous discussion regarding this. The man behind this website is Logan Philips [1]. Theofunny (talk) 20:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a primary source. These can be volatile due to the politcal natiure of these polls. Secondary sources are probably better as they are a step back form the primary source data. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:49, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does political reporting by local television stations owned by Fox Television Stations fall under WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS? — 🌙Eclipse (she/they/all neos • talk • edits) 21:06, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The 2023 RFC makes no direct mention of affiliates, but the 2022 RFC specifically excluded affiliates from the close. It would probably depend on how independent the affiliate is. If they are just reposting articles from Fox News then they are probably covered by FOXNEWSPOLITICS, if it's independent reporting it won't be covered. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:28, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think Fox-affiliated TV stations are acceptable unless we see evidence of the parent company's ethos trickling down into their editorial process. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:25, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]