Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Modifying and making up examples

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Hello together. I'm not entirely sure where exactly this dispute fits best, so for now I opted to raise it here. As summary: The African rebel group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has a long tradition of disputed symbols and flags, as the group itself never paid great attention to these kinds of issues. Over time, various logos and flags were assigned to the group by third-party sources; most famous among these is a red-black-blue flag. A few months ago, a few editors -including myself, Wowzers122, and Borysk5 - tried to sort out the mess and eventually realized that there is only one indisputable symbol of the LRA (currently used as logo in the article's infobox), while the various flags were either not correctly assigned, used by the LRA on an ad-hoc basis, or of dubious origin. Borysk5 wrote a great summary of his research on the specific red-black-blue flag on Substack. Despite Borysk5's great private research, no reliable source outright confirmed that the red-black-blue flag was never used by the LRA; for instance, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence uses the red-blue-black flag for the LRA. As a result, we compromised by just mentioning the various dubious flags assigned to the LRA in a separate section dubbed "Symbols and flags".
Fast-foward to the last few weeks: A new editor, Thingsomyipisntvisable2, became active on the LRA article and began changing the symbol and flag section using photos, Youtube videos, Wikimedia files, and by referencing Borysk5's Substack research; in general, they seemed to abhor even mentioning the red-black-blue flag. They also repeatedly tried to insert copyright-protected files. When their changes were undone by myself and Wowzers122 due to violating Wikipedia:No original research and copyright laws, they repeatedly reinserted their views, often making small adjustments such as by not citing Borysk5's research and instead copying Borysk5's sources without reading them. To me, it appears that Thingsomyipisntvisable2 does not completely understand Wikipedia's rules on original research and copyright. Discussions with them led nowhere. Wowzers122 eventually warned them regarding edit warring, but Thingsomyipisntvisable2 persists with their actions to this day, even after an uninvolved editor, X-Wu-Z, weighed in and that "the flag section should be brought back, but the tricolor flag requires a better source for it to be included there"; the latter could be done by using the U.S. Director of National Intelligence source mentioned above.
So, what do you think? Applodion (talk) 13:27, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In your note, there are four different issues: (1) Do some edits violate WP:OR? (2) Do some edits violate WP:RS? (3) Is an editor violating WP:CV? and (4) Is an editor exhibiting chronic issues that might fall under WP:ANI? On the talk page of the article in question: Talk:Lord's Resistance Army, there's a long, convoluted talk page section that weaves in and out of each of those four issues. My two cents is to try this: On that talk page, start over with specific sections devoted to each of the four issues, and in each of those sections, only discuss the one issue. I wouldn't do all four at once but just start with one of them, and work through it until it is resolved. I would not start with a conduct issue. Then, here, if and when you have a clear section over there just about OR, if you can't reach consensus there, try it here. Or if you want to get that OR issued resolved more quickly, just add a short statement here just about the OR issue, without weaving in the other concerns, if that's possible.Novellasyes (talk) 17:28, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Novellasyes: Thank you very much for your analysis. To break down the part relating to WP:OR, I would thus ask the following: If Thingsomyipisntvisable2 writes in the article: "However while the red-black-blue flag is often misattributed to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)" with no source and then writes "An original editor’s note by François Burgos confirms the misattribution: 'I now know that it was reported as ‘State of Nile’ by François Chaurel in Le Figaro on 25 June 1969, and by Karl Fachinger on 26 August 1971'" referencing Borysk5's Substack article (as François Burgos does not say anything about the LRA flag outside of Borysk5's article), is this original research? Applodion (talk) 20:29, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I went over to the article's section where that is: Lord's Resistance Army#Symbols, Uniforms and Flags. It currently says "However while the red-black-blue flag is often misattributed to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)^{[disputed – discuss]}. An original editor’s note by François Burgos confirms the misattribution: “I now know that it was reported as ‘State of Nile’ by François Chaurel in Le Figaro on 25 June 1969, and by Karl Fachinger on 26 August 1971.” (ref South Sudanese rebels, “Le Million”, Volume X, Northern and Eastern Africa in 1972. /ref) There is no reference to Borysk5's Substack article so I'm confused about that. (Was it there in the last 24 hours but was removed after you typed this?) All there is, is a reference, with no link, to something called "South Sudanese rebels, “Le Million”, Volume X, Northern and Eastern Africa in 1972". With that said, the statement that "the red-black-blue flag is often misattributed..." is either OR or very poorly sourced. The following sentence borders on incoherent. This is the sentence that says "An original editor's note ... confirms the misattribution." What is an original editor's note? Where was it? Does that original editor's note appear in the non-linked-to piece of work called "South Sudanese rebels, “Le Million”, Volume X, Northern and Eastern Africa in 1972." If it does appear in that non-linked-to work, what does the alleged original editor's note actually say? If it doesn't use words like "often misattributed" that it's OR to claim in the article that anyone thinks that the act of "often misattributing" has ever occurred. So, yeah. There seems to be OR here but there are other problems such as the lack of a link so that it can be checked, the lack of an actual quote from the non-linked-article, etc. Novellasyes (talk) 12:12, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Novellasyes: The "original editor's note" stems from Borysk5's article where he emailed an editor at the website "Flags Of The World" named Jaume Olle who in turn cited an article by Francois Chaurel who described the State of Nile's flag. Essentially, the "confirmation" is an email between an Wikipedia editor and the editor of another website, either of them being Thingsomyipisntvisable2's "original editor". Applodion (talk) 18:57, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

19050 43.252.245.8 (talk) 02:46, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One-by-one, articles such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of firewalls are being deleted due to the valid argument that the criteria for comparison are arbitrary original research. (The evaluations of whether they fit the criteria are also original research but I'd say those fall under "unlikely to be challenged" and thus do not need to be Verified.)

But the same arguably also goes for (nearly?) all of Category:Software comparisons, e.g. Comparison of operating systems, and reliable sources seldom list criteria for comparison besides cost and maybe license. They can write in prose form what strengths particular pieces of software have in a ranking but they don't often repetitively evaluate every piece of ranked software against this criteria or outright state a big list of criteria to evaluate. And if (nearly?) all software comparisons ought to be deleted, what that means for the encyclopedia is... it'd make me sad. What do we think? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:31, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have always found these pages serving to promote marginal, little-known software, by putting the names of those totally unknown and often mysterious software products next to the names of well-known (and orders-of-magnitude-more commercially established and successful) products. Their primary purpose has always been product placement. No reliable tech source would ever put these nn products that you can only learn about by reading these "comparison of x" Wikipedia pages next to industry-standard products in an editorially supervised comparative review article, based on the inherent logic of "DUE" as it exists out there in the world; but Wikipedia would. —Alalch E. 22:56, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most of those lists require that entries be themselves notable and have a Wikipedia article. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion on the Femosphere Talkpage about possibly including a source discussing online misandry.

The author who coined the term "Femosphere" wrote the following (Kay 2024): "However, what I wish to focus on here, as a related but distinct phenomenon, are those communities which have emerged ostensibly in reaction against the manosphere, and which claim to be “feminist.” They centre “women’s interests,” criticise misogyny and sexism, and are explicitly misandrist, making frequent claims of female supremacy. I term this the femosphere - the diverse ecology of women’s online communities that have arisen since 2018, primarily through Reddit, in defensive reaction against the manosphere, and which can be understood as a gender-flipped version or mirroring of the manosphere."

The proposed new source (Coppollilo 2025) writes: "Thus, our study seeks to address this gap by analyzing both misogynistic and misandric Reddit communities, aiming to identify and assess potential disparities in linguistic, emotional, and structural features." but does not directly mention the word "Femosphere."

My viewpoint is that these are essentially the same communities saying the same things on the same platform, so directly using the term isn't necessary in this case. However, another user is arguing that directly using the term is necessary in order to avoid WP:OR. I don't see a direct answer to this question on the WP:OR page, which made me think it would be good to bring up the question here. Dekadoka (talk) 18:03, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would hold off on using the term “Femosphere” in WP - completely. It strikes me as a neologism. If several other sources pick up on it and start using it, then we can. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the term is emerging, and there is no universal definition of the "Femosphere".

The Kay(2024) definition is one of several. There are definitions that do not use the word misandrist - for example Melton defines the femosphere as "a collection of online communities predominantly inhabited by women, providing platforms for discourse on gender issues and challenges to traditional norms." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2025.2453442#abstract

Additionally, the Coppolillo (2025) gendered hate speech article in question on the Femosphere talk page was already presented for inclusion on the Misandry talk page last month and inclusion was not supported and the conversation was archived.

Regarding the WP:OR concern raised for its relevance to the Femosphere article: my position is that the Coppolillo (2025) study cannot be used to support content about the femosphere because it does not mention the term femosphere at all. The two sources are about different scopes, and using one to interpret or substantiate claims about the other would be synthesis IMO.

HairlessPolarBear (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that is an accurate representation of Melton or the discussion on the Misandry page. Melton 2025 does use the term "misandry," stating, in the page you linked, "Through themes of misandry and gender essentialism, FDS aims to indoctrinate members under the guise of community support." There is an ongoing discussion about inclusion of primary sources on the Misandry page which also relates to this source and the prior discussion that you linked. I'm also not sure how any of this relates to Wikipedia's WP:OR policy or the question of whether or not the specific term needs to be mentioned.

There may be a good argument that the term "Femosphere" isn't good. I'm personally not decided on this point. I do think there are at least three academic sources discussing online misandrist groups, even if they don't specifically use the term "Femosphere." Maybe a good argument could be made that more sources are needed, but I'm not sure what the usual policy guidelines are in cases like this. Dekadoka (talk) 18:02, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The definition I provided is directly pulled from the Melton article background:

Background The femosphere represents a collection of online communities predominantly inhabited by women, providing platforms for discourse on gender issues and challenges to traditional norms.

The passage you are citing is Melton's discussion of r/FDS or r/FemaleDatingStrategy (not the broader femosphere), which she flags as a misandrist subcommunity of the femosphere. However, this does not extend to her definition of the femosphere as a whole.

- I linked the earlier Misandry-talk page thread because Archive 9 contains the same Coppolillo study and proposal for the Misandry article and did it not gain consensus for inclusion, which might be helpful context in this discussion.

You have previously noted that WP:OR requires the exact term to be mentioned

I understand that on the Femosphere talk page you later wrote in response to this that the standard was The viewpoint of one user on the Misandry page was something that I was trying to work with, not that I agreed with, and it isn't a general rule for all Wikipedia pages but WP:OR and WP:SYNTH do apply site-wide, so I think the term-match requirement would apply here as well.

Other editors have also provided feedback on the relevance of the Coppolillo (2025) article as well

HairlessPolarBear (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's stay focused on the question of whether or not using this source in this case is WP:OR. I understand you disagree because it doesn't include the term "Femosphere." I'm simply asking for more experienced users here to give their view. Again, I already understand your view, and you have repeated yourself several times now. Discussing the use of the term, dredging up long discussions about other sources on other articles, etc. is acknowledged but not the topic here. Dekadoka (talk) 21:56, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Bonnie Blue (actress) § RfC for Blue's full DOB. Some1 (talk) 01:04, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have a quote from Jonathan Abel, a comparative literature academic that I'm trying to summarize for poop emoji:

What could explain the emoji's popularity beyond its culture of origination? I suggest that it is likely a kind of ‘reverse mimesis’: The remediation of the ‘poop mark’ into digital environments betrays a truth some of us might rather not admit but that Katy Perry is happy to concede: globally, a primary site of cell phone use is the toilet. What do we make out of this fertile mess? The poop character in our phones helps us to engage with our actual world, not simply to represent a universal condition; rather, it helps us to think about the poop on our phones. Emoji eloquently reaffi rms the toilet not just as a site of texting but also as a site of reading. The pile of poo suggests something we probably already know about our new media—too many of us are spending far too long on the toilet with our new media gadgets. According to one study, as many as one-sixth of all cell phones today are covered with fecal matter and dangerous bacteria such as E. coli (see Song 2011 ). This reversal of mimesis might show us the true reason why the poop emoji is so popular globally, which is to say that the ‘poop’ emoji is both a sign of our contemporary media consumption and a manifestation of its waste.

On the page currently I've summarized how the argument progresses. I would like to replace this with a shorter summary of the argument, along the lines of: Everyone uses their phones on the toilet, we all know on some level we're contaminating it or that it's otherwise something we shouldn't be doing, and by using the poop emoji we are trying to navigate the internal dissonance in some way.

Does the text meet WP:DIRECTLYSUPPORTS? If not, how can this argument be summarized to meet it? Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 04:51, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not 100% sure what Abel is claiming in that excerpt and therefore, I'm not sure if his quote supports your proposed summary. For example, what does he mean when he writes, "...it helps us to think about the poop on our phones"? By "poop on our phones", is Abel referring to the actual physical fecal matter that is on one-sixth of all cell phones today, or is he referring to the online content people are scrolling through and reading/consuming, much of which, especially what people are likely to scroll through on the toilet, we would all recognize as unadulterated bs. I'd say he probably means the second of those interpretations. Using or enjoying or appreciating the poop emoji isn't a subtle nod to the fact that one's cell phone may have fecal matter on it. It is a subtle nod to the fact that on some level, we recognize the sheer unadulterated poopiness of much of what we wade through online. Also, when he says, "too many of us are spending far too long on the toilet with our new media gadgets" is he saying as per your summary, "we all know on some level we're contaminating it or that it's otherwise something we shouldn't be doing [because in so doing, we are getting actual, physical shit on our cellphones]" or is he saying, "we all know on some level, that is born home to use more immediately when we engage in this behavior while sitting on a toilet, that what we are scrolling through and consuming is [metaphorically speaking] worthless bs, which we all know on some level is a soul-numbing, mindless, worthless use of our mental attention and energy." I think the latter is what he is saying, and that he thinks there is widespread use of the poop emoji because it so conveniently captures and expresses this home truth.Novellasyes (talk) 13:13, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Novellasyes. My read was that he meant both, that there is something disgusting about using your phone on the toilet. I tried to convey the "unadulterated bs" media with otherwise something we shouldn't be doing, but I need to make that more clear. I don't think we can ignore the literal contamination point and say it is pure metaphor, given the amount of time he spends on it, and the point This reversal of mimesis might show us the true reason why the poop emoji is so popular globally, which is to say that the ‘poop’ emoji is... a manifestation of its waste, with the waste referent being the literal contamination. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 04:25, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Talk:Interesting number paradox where editors disagree over whether running a script over multiple content pages on OEIS or on Wikipedia itself, and determining what is not included on those pages, should be considered either forbidden as original research or allowed as a routine calculation (and whether the Wikipedia part of this is allowed under WP:CIRCULAR), and contribute to the talk page discussion if you have an opinion on these matters. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:01, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this belongs on the noticeboard page itself, not this one. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 23:39, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[context: I originally misplaced this notice on the talk page for the noticeboard instead of the noticeboard itself.] Yes, I agree. Moved. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that User:David Eppstein's summary is inaccurate in several respects. Please read the discussion rather than being influenced by that. Anomie⚔ 11:05, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:BATTLEGROUND. I was careful here not even to hint at which side of this debate I was taking. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:07, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to cite the Population density and distribution section in Demographics of China and realised that much of the whole thing was written somewhat like a personal essay or report. Not sure if this is the correct place to raise it? If anyone can take a look that would be appreciated. Pksois23 (talk) 07:26, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]