Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Q1: In regards to paranormal topics (including UFOs and adjacent, mainstream subjects such as astronomy, politics, and aerospace engineering), is Nick Pope ...

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
• Option 4: Other (individual authors are unfilterable so no deprecation option is offered)

Q2: If this RfC results in a decipherable outcome, how should it be logged at WP:RSP?

• Option 1: An independent entry for Nick Pope.
• Option 2: A single entry for "UFO content creators" or "paranormal content creators" which could be populated with other names if similarly decided in the future.
• Option 3: No record should be preserved of this RfC outside of the noticeboard archives.
• Option 4: Other

Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• On Q1 Option 3. Nick Pope is best known for dozens of appearances in UFO documentary-style entertainment films,[1] as emcee of "Ancient Aliens: LIVE on Tour!" (part of the Ancient Aliens entertainment franchise which posits that Martians used ray beams to build the pyramids),[2] his numerous quotes in tabloids commenting on UFOs, and his non-critical, popular texts on UFOs (see Amazon author page: [3]). Across numerous past discussions (see below) it's been made generally clear that he presents the 20th Century UFO Shared Fiction storytelling versus factual reporting or scholarship.

On Q3 Option 2 but also okay with Option 3 For ease of presentation and economization of space, they should be aggregated under a common heading with a concise, holistic description using an introductory, independent clause (i.e. "Editors have found the following UFO content creators are generally unreliable ...") that can be separately workshopped later. If additional UFO writers are classified according to whatever the case ends up being for Pope, they can be added, as appropriate, rather than cluttering RSP with voluminous and numerous entries for individual writers. Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC); edited 16:13, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On Q1, Option C per @Chetsford

No opinion on Q2. Dw31415 (talk) 02:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Q1 Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting. He is not a scientist, nor an expert in politics, he is a fringe exponent, and as such cannot be used for statements of fact. Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Q2 Option 4: Whilst Option 2 would be best, that needs a seperate discussion on the general concept. and not taged as being about one author. Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I have a few thoughts. First, this seems a little narrow in scope. I agree that we should consider UFO content creators more broadly. Secondly, it seems like these people could reasonably be used as a source for information about the disclosure movement itself (e.g. this UFO conference happened, there were these speakers, and these topics were covered), but obviously not reliable for claims about secret government programs, extraterrestrial contact, etc. Lastly, I'm not sure these discussions are perennial enough to be added to the table. Anne drew (talk · contribs) 17:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• On question 2, I oppose option 2. For the reasons I said in the last discussion, I oppose creating a specific classification for such a varied assemblage of sources; even if we were to include the names manually the implication would obviously be that anyone who writes on similar topics is also unreliable when such people vary greatly. I don't think we've had cause to discuss this enough to insert him or Pope in the table, which is supposed to be perennially discussed sources, this was really only brought up a single time in reference to one AfD and the resulting discussions, and we barely cite him onwiki and for nothing of real importance. It's not a problem if we do add him to the table, so I wouldn't oppose it the same way I do option 2, it just seems unnecessary. You can always just link to this RFC it ever becomes a problem again. As for Q1, while I don't think appearing on a stupid TV show is itself evidence of unreliability, his books push fringe theories and so I would not cite him on this. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Question 1 Option 2 - case by case - as usual, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. I’d try to evaluate the RSness of the source 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 would suspect that he is being used as a cite for what is in his many books so that should be fine and helpful, and even necessary. (Where else to find writings on UFO reports other than books like this author's ?) Come back with an actual entry and cite in question and -- likely it is fine. Cheers part 1
• Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP - it seems not a "Perennial" topic so fails the criteria to be listed there. WP:RSP is not supposed to be a list of every single author, just a list meant for sources frequently discussed. In this case, discuss at any article or coming to RSN with any individual issue is the way this should proceed. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:46, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Q2 – Option 1: An independent entry for the individual iff there is consensus about a reliability rating here. As noted below, we've done this with WP:JEFFSNEIDER. If an individual publishes widely and makes appearances in a variety of shows and publications, is frequently cited on en-wiki, and is a frequent topic of discussion here then this makes sense. I specifically oppose Q2 Option 2. A blanket entry for "UFO content creators" is too broad and is unnecessary since most of this content is covered under the general reliability standards and WP:FRINGE. This also becomes problematic if individual authors/creators end up with different reliability ratings and may inappropriately imply that the rating applies automatically to creators who have not been discussed. "Paranormal content creators" is an even broader category and therefore more problematic than "UFO content creators". —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:14, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP -- solution in search of a problem. Obviously, we're not going to treat fringe UFO believers as RSes on the existence of aliens, but per Anne drew, they're RSes to their own beliefs, the beliefs of others, and the history of their own movement, etc. Feoffer (talk) 06:20, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Q1 Option 3: Not reliable for factual content. Thoughts about his own beliefs or beliefs of others that are originated by Pope in books, on blogs, on YouTube videos, podcasts, fringe websites, social media posts, etc. do not merit automatic inclusion and are WP:UNDUE unless they are also noted in third party WP:RS sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:43, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Question 1, Option 3 As a professional practitioner of woo there is absolutely no good basis for considering Pope a reliable source for any paranormal topics (or "adjacent subjects"), broadly construed. There is also no good basis for treating his own beliefs as encyclopedic content. No opinion about Question 2. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 02:58, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• We have previously and extensively discussed Nick Pope (e.g. [4] [5] etc.) and his various writings and other commentary are currently used as a source across the project (e.g. Ilkley Moor UFO incident, Ilkley Moor, Flying Saucer Working Party, Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, Narrative of the abduction phenomenon, Time-traveler UFO hypothesis, etc.). Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Seems to me that if a "UFO content creators" or "paranormal content creators" row is created, people will start proposing other categories of content creators (e.g., legal content creators). Do you envision that over time, we'd just have a bunch of rows for different categories of individual content creators? FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:42, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It's possible. In the case of law, I'm assuming we're talking about pseudolaw content creators, like sovereign citizens. For the most part, we haven't had, in practice, a lot of disagreement about excluding the legal theories of Freemen on the Land or Sovereign Citizens to the point that there would be much benefit in indexing them in a single place to avoid endless argumentative repetition. If that started to be a constant and unending point-of-contention, however, I could imagine the dynamic might then justify a single and concise entry to index the most prolific and frequently discussed SCs and Freemen. But as of now, I don't see any extant record at RSN of these types of discussions. Chetsford (talk) 01:17, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I was actually thinking much more generally (e.g., any legal content creator, or at least those who self-publish, not just those who create pseudolaw content). The reason I asked is because I don't see how to bound the scope of Q2 if consensus is for option 1 or 2. That is, you're asking specifically about Nick Pope, but editors raise questions about lots of individual content creators here: "Is Paula Person, author of Work 1 and Work 2, a reliable source?" What would distinguish the content creators who merit some characterization at RSP from those who don't? FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:10, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In the case of Pope, an RfC is realistically justified as his name comes up repeatedly and he produces huge tracts of information in books by different publishing houses, appearances in different programs and documentaries, etc., and there are demands to relitigate each excision of his content which RfCs were designed to prevent (in the interest of time economization).
  I think that's qualitatively different from someone who asks "is John Smith's 1982 book about the Third Zulu War RS" ... that said, if there were an entire subculture of authors who create huge volumes of fictional content about the Third Zulu War, sure, I think that'd be fine. I just don't know it's something that would happen, in practice. Chetsford (talk) 14:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Do we have any other listing on RSP for an individual person? Not that that impacts my answer (which I am thinking about), but I can't think of another. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I haven't checked. Chetsford (talk) 14:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There's WP:THENEEDLEDROP, which is one person's YouTube channel, and The Skeptic's Dictionary is also listed. -- Reconrabbit 14:31, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Then it sounds like this would be different in the sense that it's source=creator rather than source=publication. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't find any entries on RSP that otherwise refer to a creator rather than the publication, with the exception of WP:JACOBIN which says "the reliability of articles authored by Branko Marcetic has been considered questionable." I don't see an easy way to mark a person as being more reliable or not with the current system (list) in place? -- Reconrabbit 15:07, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• There is some precedent with Jeff Sneider at WP:JEFFSNEIDER. The facts are a bit different but the entry notes that Sneider's reliability rating does not extend to his podcast co-host; thus the reliability is based on the speaker/"author" and not the show. If Sneider writes a piece in a different publication or is interviewed on a different podcast, I think it would be reasonable for an editor to apply his personal reliability rating to such sources, absent other reasons to doubt the suitability of the source and with all the usual caveats. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫‍(talk) 19:10, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I thought RFCs were only meant to be started for widely used sources. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:13, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Q1: In regards to paranormal topics (including UFOs and adjacent, mainstream subjects such as astronomy, politics, and aerospace engineering), is Richard Dolan ...

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
• Option 4: Other (individual authors are unfilterable so no deprecation option is offered)

Q2: If this RfC results in a decipherable outcome, how should it be logged at WP:RSP?

• Option 1: An independent entry for Richard Dolan.
• Option 2: A single entry for "UFO content creators" or "paranormal content creators" which could be populated with other names if similarly decided in the future.
• Option 3: No record should be preserved of this RfC outside of the noticeboard archives.
• Option 4: Other

Chetsford (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• On Q1 Option 3. Dolan has appeared dozens of times on Coast to Coast AM, [6] has written numerous non-scientific books exclusively about UFOs,[7] and appears at UFO festivals like Contact in the Desert. [8] He presents himself as a serious academic, self-styled as the "UFO historian", however, matter-of-factly claims things like: a breakaway civilization is operating flying saucers,[9] and that "the existence of underwater UFO bases is likely". [10] His writings include forewords by such luminaries as 9/11 Truther Jim Marrs [11] and he was previously, it seems, proprietor of an indie publishing house called Keyhole Publishing that produced books like Richard Sauder's Hidden in Plain Site [12] that makes the case that The Matrix (apparently a scifi movie from the 1990s) is real. He currently has a YouTube show that discusses things like the Bermuda Triangle. [13] Chetsford (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On Q3 Option 2. For ease of presentation and economization of space, they should be aggregated under a common heading with a concise, holistic description using an introductory, independent clause (i.e. "Editors have found the following UFO content creators are generally unreliable ...") that can be separately workshopped later. If additional UFO writers are classified according to whatever the case ends up being for Dolan, they can be added, as appropriate, rather than cluttering RSP with voluminous and numerous entries for individual writers. Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• no Q1 Option 3. for question 2 its "An independent entry for Richard Dolan. " Slatersteven (talk) 12:19, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• On Q1 Option 3 per Chetsford. As for the second question, Q2 Option 2 would be my preferred choice, though option 1 could also work if he's cited frequently enough, which doesn't seem to be the case so far. Paprikaiser (talk) 20:14, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• On question 2, I oppose option 2. For the reasons I said in the last discussion, I oppose creating a specific classification for such a varied assemblage of sources; even if we were to include the names manually the implication would obviously be that anyone who writes on similar topics is also unreliable when such people vary greatly. I don't think we've had cause to discuss this enough to insert him or Pope in the table, which is supposed to be frequently discussed sources, this was really only brought up a single time as far as I can tell? He is not a perennial source by any means and we barely cite him. It's not a problem if we do add him to the table, so I wouldn't oppose it the same way I do option 2, it just seems unnecessary. You can just point to this discussion going forward. As for Q1, his own reliability, he doesn't seem reliable, and furthermore all his books appear to be self-published or published by publishers only in the business of publishing wonkiness. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:00, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Question 1 Option 2 - case by case - as usual, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. I’d try to evaluate the source 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 would suspect that he is being used as a cite for what is in his many books or media content per se so that should be fine and helpful, and seems a general source for the field. Cheers part 1
• Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP - it has not made the mark of a "Perennial" topic so fails the criteria to be listed there. It is not supposed to be a list of every single author and every single corpration or media entity, just a list meant for thigns frequently coming up. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:32, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"I’d try to evaluate the source depending on what the proposed edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS" Could you give some examples of Dolan's writing that might, contextually, turn out appropriate for our encyclopedia? For example, would it be his writing in A.D. After Disclosure where he says humans are being abducted and experimented on by aliens? Or the part where he says we should consider if aliens are harvesting human souls? Or that aliens may be interested in using humans as a food source? Maybe just one or two examples so I can better understand your position. Chetsford (talk) 16:00, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Q2: Option 1 (individual entry) or Option 3 (no RSP entry). Oppose Option 2 ("UFO/paranoral content creators" entry). What I wrote in the Nick Pope RfC applies here. If Dolan publishes/appears widely, has consistent reliability issues, and is a recurring topic of discussion, an individual entry makes sense. "UFO content creators" and is too broad; "paranormal content creators" is even more so. Dolan doesn't appear to have been discussed often enough to be considered a true "perennial" source so option 3 (no entry) makes sense. That said, if there if a reasonable participation here and consensus about a rating, memorializing the discussion at RSP is acceptable. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP As above, this isn't a problem that needs solving. Dolan isn't a RS on the existence of aliens, but he's probably a fine source for, say, the history of the UFO movement, their internecine disputes, and his own personal beliefs. Feoffer (talk) 06:27, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"he's probably a fine source for, say, the history of the UFO movement" His book AD: After Disclosure asserts as a fact the existence of "The Breakaway Group" which he explains is a cabal of dark global forces who are secretly using Hollywood to leak out evidence of aliens and slowly condition society that UFO believers were right all along. I'd rather not have an article on "The Breakaway Group" in our encyclopedia. Chetsford (talk) 15:54, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, our editorial policy doesn't allow editors to include details from fringe proponents they find interesting - unless secondary RS have discussed them first. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's definitely not cite Dolan on something like that. If memory serves, his very first book, despite being conspiratorial, actually had sourcing and included good debunkings. I don't think anything he's said or done since could be accused of being a RS though, and I wouldn't especially recommend using him even for mundane historical facts. But have people really been trying to use him as a regular old reliable source without any caution on context? Feoffer (talk) 13:30, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Question 1, Option 3 Dolan is a professional practitioner of woo, and for this project nothing he writes/says/claims/etc. about paranormal topics, broadly construed, can or should be trusted. No opinion about Question 2, although I do not see how Dolan qualifies as a "perennial" source. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Richard Dolan has been previously discussed (e.g. [14], etc.) here and his voluminous writings are cited across the project where they're used to subtly weave-in UFO frames on mainstream topics, such as the biography of U.S. Navy ADM Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, etc. His writing is currently the only source to support the claim in the biography of Philip J. Klass that Klass masterminded a defamation campaign against Stanton Friedman. Chetsford (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I mentioned this above in the Nick Pope RFC but there is precedent for an individual author reliability rating with WP:JEFFSNEIDER. That's the only example I've found. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫‍(talk) 23:05, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Can I suggest that instead of adding anything to the RSP, or having multiple different RFCs, that a project source list might be the best idea? RSN could still help with any unsolvable disagreements about any listed source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• That's an excellent idea, ActivelyDisinterested, and the best proposal to address this yet IMO. Chetsford (talk) 00:13, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If there is unresolvable disagreement about an entry on such a list then editors always have the option to start a discussion here for WP:3O. Projects maintaining such lists is common practice, they just can't be maintained against wider community consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:02, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, the Times of London posted this article about former New York mayor Bill de Blasio's comments about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. This would be a perfectly ordinary article about a subject of public note... except that according to Bill de Blasio I never spoke to that reporter and never said those things and The story in the Times of London is entirely false and fabricated.

The article itself is now down, as it should be, but this IMO pretty clearly calls the reliability of the Times into question. This is past the ordinary mistakes newspapers make every so often. Publishing a whole fake interview suggests that at minimum the Times has very little pre-publication editorial review (since even basic reaching out to de Blasio would have caught this) and potentially may have fabricated an entire interview deliberately (a possibility I wouldn't normally like to consider but this is so egregious I have to). Loki (talk) 01:42, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently they were tricked by an impersonator 𝚄𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝙶𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑 (We are currently clean on OPSEC.) 01:50, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out that it wasn't an imposter. It was someone else named Bill DeBlasio who never claimed to be the former mayor (though he recognized that the reporter was assuming this, even though the reporter never said so), and it was The Times' reporter who initiated contact. More info from Semafor. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:36, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pulling an article when it becomes apparent that a mistake how been made, and publicly admitting to that mistake, is how we want sources to behave. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:03, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. They messed up. They owned up to it. They pulled it in two hours. Hopefully the Times will be a bit more wary in the future, and hopefully Wikipedia will also remain wary of putting too much trust in a single source (any single source) for the sort of content that this sort of hoax could have been responsible for. It doesn't appear to have made it into the de Blasio article, so we're all good there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fabricating quotes to the former NYC mayor is pretty wild in the first place. They didn't pull it till caught. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 02:14, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a good look, certainly. All sources are fallible though, and we have to base content on something... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:16, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They didn't fabricate the quote, the quote came from an impersonator who fabricated the quote. The Times fell for the impersonination thinking it was the real Bill de Blasio. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's not SO bad then. Not like they're the first people to get clowned like that. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 02:33, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah it makes them look stupid, but it's hardly the first time this has happened to a news organisation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:35, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any acknowledgement on their Corrections page. FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:20, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should wait and see whether they add it to the list. If not, we should have a discussion about what not owning up to their mistake means for the Time's reliability. Cortador (talk) 07:17, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More than half a week later - still no correction. Cortador (talk) 09:26, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Any correction from them yet? I think this part specifically is being overlooked. If they admitted their mistake, then they're fine. But if they haven't, then their lack of accountability should raise farther discussion. Wikieditor662 (talk) 05:52, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They've publicly admitted their mistake, retracted the article, and apologised to Bill de Blasio directly. I can only guess there's nothing on the correction page as there's no article to correct (as it was pulled). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:15, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh alright, then I don't see the point in this discussion, are you able to close it? Wikieditor662 (talk) 19:51, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It will get automatically archived 5 days after the last comment, but maybe I should do it manually. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:02, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that pulling the article was the correct move. However, if they were tricked by an impersonator it still concerns me that they never tried to contact (the real) de Blasio. Even DMing him on Twitter would have been enough to stop this.

Like, the impersonator wasn't even trying to talk like the real guy. Anyone with even basic familiarity with the subject matter could've caught this. Loki (talk) 02:29, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What action, if any, are you suggesting Wikipedia should take on this? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:32, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Times is currently green at RSP and I'm no longer confident it should be. Loki (talk) 04:10, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt there's a newspaper of record out there that hasn't made similar slip-ups at one time or another. They messed up. They admitted it. They corrected it, rapidly. We clearly aren't going to change the RSPN entry on that alone. You could start an RfC, but it would be a complete waste of time in my opinion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:47, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt there's a newspaper of record out there that hasn't made slip ups. Similar slip-ups, though, I think is more debatable.

The entire premise of the article is wrong. They put words in the mouth of a man that he did not say and in fact has publicly said the opposite of. Loki (talk) 04:54, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How many reputable mainstream sources were tricked by The Yes Men's impersonation on the BBC, where one of them posed as an official spokesperson for Dow Chemical, apologizing for the Bhopal disaster, promising reparations, etc? This kind of thing doesn't happen often, but it does happen. 172.56.13.52 (talk) 08:43, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's a long history of news organisations failing for such hoaxes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:30, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the WaPo unreliable because of Janet Cooke? Is the New York Times unreliable because of Jayson Blair? Or is it only British newspapers that Loki thinks should be targeted? FOARP (talk) 16:13, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...I am honestly concerned that you have these examples ready but think they are reasons to defend the Times rather than be doubtful of WaPo or the NYT. Loki (talk) 16:05, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well are you arguing that we downgrade all major newspapers with similar issues or just The Times? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:08, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should at least be skeptical of any source that does this.

Upon looking closer, the WaPo incident was in the 1980s, and one hopes they've improved their fact-checking standards since then. The NYT incident, however, was both more recent and extremely problematic, considering how it consists of fabrication across multiple articles over years. I'm surprised we didn't downgrade it at the time, frankly. Loki (talk) 19:05, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that we do treat the news media in general with greater skepticism than for example prominently published academic work. This particular case does not strike me as out of the ordinary but is a good example of why we are reminded to be extra careful at the intersection of breaking news and BLP. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They have put out a statement "The Times has apologised to Bill de Blasio and removed the article immediately after discovering that our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor" HuffPost. I would expect that a correction notice will follow. I don't see how they could have confirmed it with the real de Blasio, when they thought they were in direct communication with the real de Blasio. The mistake was being overly trusting in a source, which they have immediately corrected. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:33, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DMing the real de Blasio on Twitter. Or emailing him. Or calling him.

Like, you have "de Blasio" making public statements contrary to previous public statements and talking like a different person. Certainly reaching out via a known method of contact is just basic fact-checking. Loki (talk) 04:10, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Individual news sources aren't that good most of the time, but even if editors decided something like that was due, it would be covered by RSBREAKING in this specific case, no? Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:56, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RSBREAKING doesn't apply because this wasn't a breaking news report. "Breaking news" doesn't refer to news that were just published, it refers to news reports published very close to the event, from a writer who likely has incomplete information or is writing about a developing situation. This interview with the fake de Blasio unlikely happened just hours before they published it. It likely happened at least a day ago or so, as then included into this articles while adding other stuff e.g. Fetterman's comment and the assessment by economists etc. Cortador (talk) 07:12, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we don't cover exclusives then I think we should. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:44, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why? For those unfamiliar with the jargon, "an exclusive" is an opportunity to talk to a newsworthy person all by yourself, with them promising that they won't share the information with anyone else yet. It is the opposite of a press release or a press conference, in which the person (or their publicity team) spreads their information far and wide. I don't see any reason why we should be worried about "exclusives". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:22, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a pretty bad mistake from the Times, in isolation I could see this as just a mistake that was rapidly caught, but this is not the Times first editorial controversy, for example this one was far worse [15]

While they are generally reliable, I would take their reporting on some controversial political topics with a pinch of salt. Giuliotf (talk) 11:40, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked and the origibal story still appears to be up on their website [16] Giuliotf (talk) 11:46, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I might just be confused (wouldn't be the first time) but that looks like a different article than the original one in the thread, and than the one in the post you're replying to. 𝚄𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝙶𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑 (We are currently clean on OPSEC.) 13:03, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One problematic article isn't enough to call into question the credibility of a publication.

I've added a separate (and I think much more egregious) example where the Times publish a problematic series of articles, at least one of which is still on their website. Giuliotf (talk) 13:19, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• An individual incident generally doesn't impact a source's reliability, not unless secondary coverage makes it clear that it has seriously damaged their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which isn't the case here. It might be a reason to track coverage and to give the source a closer look, but it isn't enough to make us reconsider its status on its own. If you do want to argue that it's a problem, the thing to do is to look for secondary coverage that shows how this has affected their reputation. --Aquillion (talk) 13:55, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• One of the signs of a good news organization is they retract their articles when they make an error. I think wikipedians have gotten way too attached to "discrediting" news sources when in general, across the board, news isn't reliable when compared to well researched academic works. There are more long-form, well researched news stories, but the news cycle today is faster then ever and focused on generating clicks. Per WP:RS: Each article needs to be evaluated for how reliable it is. Not just the author. Not just the publication. If we have a generally reliable News Source that reports something, that is clearly not true, that's enough to point out that that specific article isn't reliable because it's clearly not true.

Look at this article [17] that claims this about Twighlight: "it was the 2008 movie that truly propelled the franchise (and vampires) into mass appeal. Vampires weren’t just for horror nerds and theater kids anymore. Vampires could be cool and sexy." The author was a teenager when Twightlight came out, it's totally true that Twighlight made Vampires popular for her generation, and that is the personal experience of the author and many people her age. But here on Wikipedia, there are way too many arguments that use a source like that, where it's a throw away remark, over a source like this, that points to the ABC soap opera "Dark Shadows", and a vampire who wakes up after a long sleep and has to adjust to modern society as being a turning point in how vampires are portrayed in video, and then goes on to reference other movies and tv shows that came along before Twighlight that were mainstream and popular with generations before, like Lost Boys, Interview with a Vampire, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. [18]. The second one is clearly better researched, the first one is just a throw away remark buried in an article about something else, based on personal experience, and not based on research.

Wikipedians like to grasp onto that first article and insist "No, Twilight was the first! See this article says so!" and then get their buddies to come "vote" on it. This exact problem is happening on the Terminology of homosexuality article, where editors are defending a blog post, about a person who as a teenager experienced the word "Same-sex attraction" being used by religious groups, as proof the term was created and primarily used by religious groups, when a short search on Google Scholar clearly shows it's an academic term with a long history, used in academic and medical works for decades. Clearly, that particular blog post is "not reliable" because it's obviously not true.

The same problem is on Imane Khelif's article, and the whole "no medical evidence has been published to indicate she has XY chromosomes or elevated levels of testosterone" debacle. "We have a source that say's so!" despite... obviously it not being true. Nothing makes Wikipedia seem more unreliable then the manipulation of "reliable sources" in this manner to push specific points of view. Denaar (talk) 14:09, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm in England and I never heard of Bill de Blasio before. Yes it was bad The Times got duped by someone, but the idea that they would bother fabricating something about some New York mayor is quite ludicrous. How many New Yorkers know the name of the mayor of London and do they care in the least about his politics? NadVolum (talk) 14:23, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Mayor of London is Sadiq Khan, and you'd be surprised how much we New Yorkers know about him as a result of Islamophobia. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:50, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Many Americans seem to think that the mayor of London is a terrorist. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:31, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As others have said, how the Times handled this after publishing us exactly the behavior we expect from a reliable source. It's also a good reason to keep in mind NOTNEWS, particularly when it comes to things that can only be confirmed by one source, that there is never a reason to rush to add such material until it's clear it seems legit. Masem (t) 14:31, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1 Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:49, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a massive error but it does not alter The Times‍'s overall reliability rating. As others have said, a single incident is rarely enough to undo hundreds of years of credibility and their response is an indication of sound editorial practices. It doesn't appear that the original story made its way into any en-wiki articles but there's a good lesson here about not rushing to catalogue every breaking detail about high profile stories here. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:25, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SOURCEWRONG applies. It seems the process worked if they took story down.

if there is constant pattern of doing this, we might need to consider reliability, but a single incident is understandable User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 15:53, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Correcting mistakes should make a source go up in our estimation of (general) reliability. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:58, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They made a terrible mistake, but the owned up to it and pulled it. It's not part of a pattern of behavior. LDW5432 (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just because accusations have been made against a living person repeatedly in this thread, and only corrected once, several levels deep in the replies, I thought it best to make a clear and visible statement: The person whom the Times interviewed does not appear to be an "impersonator" or a "hoaxster", but simple someone else of the same name (if capitalized differently) who the Times mistakenly reached out to. The fault lies at the feet of the paper, not the interviewee. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:21, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• The article in the first place is a bad mistake for sure, but I mean, them removing it entirely is exactly how we expect reliable sources to behave when they screw up - they realized they got duped/messed up, owned up to it, and removed the content from circulation entirely. If anything, it's a point in their favor as an RS rather than against. The Kip ^(contribs) 06:24, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  They didn't "get duped", they duped themselves by reaching out to a completely different person. Even more concerningly, the Times itself is misleading in its correction by stating DeBlasio was "falsely claiming" to be de Blasio [19]. When a newspaper makes a misleading statement in their removal of a fabricated article, it makes sense to asks serious questions about their reliability. That they didn't have any form of fact-checking to make sure they were speaking to the correct person is indeed very concerning, as Loki points out. As DeBlasio says, "He assumed the reporter would “have all his people check it out.”" The fact they did not is a problem. Katzrockso (talk) 02:59, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  +1 (t · c) buidhe 01:46, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The man was aware they thought he was the mayor and didn't correct them. That means he was impersonating Bill de Blasio. They made a good faith error and the man decided to have a laugh with it. I would not expect any media organisation to fact check a quote they had obtained by calling an interviewee.--Boynamedsue (talk) 10:21, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

About the idea that That they didn't have any form of fact-checking to make sure they were speaking to the correct person is indeed very concerning: Shall we just stop using news sources, then? Because this basically never happens at any of them. The closest you might get is someone checking that they've got spelling of the person's name or the job title right, but you wouldn't do that for a more famous figure. (Think about how stupid that would look: "Just to be sure, he spells his name D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P, right?") And since a lot of "interviews" happen in e-mail or DMs, you might just look at the signature block/profile instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:30, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a daft thread and should be closed. Of course this has no effect on reliability. The Times has done everything we would expect, and the article appears not even to have got into its print edition. In that case, one would not even expect a written correction, the statement on the mistake suffices. Almost as if this wasn't really about the somewhat anonymous (in the UK at least) Mr de Blasio at all...Boynamedsue (talk) 10:17, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• This is less of an issue than the current BBC scandal, and that quickly closed with a consensus not to change the reliability of the BBC. I do not see any reason why the The Times reliability should be overall questioned due to this. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:19, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed. I don't think this mistake was intentional. But for BBC's case, it is hard to say. MrGerLib (talk) 05:23, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How reliable is the highly referenced, highly discussed Business Insider after it has started using A.I.? NotJamestack (talk) 10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1: Generally Reliable
• Option 2: Additional Considerations Needed
• Option 3: Generally Unreliable
• Option 4: Must Be Deprecated

Option 2.5; Use With Extreme Caution. I'm not too familiar with this change. A.I. does tend to be inaccurate, but I'm not sure how this A.I. will behave. I will be going for 2.5 on balance as a result. NotJamestack (talk) 10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 No issues with reliability for me, but AI-generated stories should not contribute to establishing SIGCOV.
  Business Insider's AI policy is that the AI will generate a draft of the story that will then be human-reviewed before publication. So I don't have any more issue with using AI here than I would using spellcheck. That said, the bigger issue for me than reliability is whether or not these stories should contribute to SIGCOV for purposes of contributing to N. IMO, they should not. The idea implicit in SIGCOV is that, if multiple slow-moving humans have devoted time to enterprising stories about X, then X must be a matter of great interest to humans. The same can't be said for AI that is hoovering up vast quantities of material and using temporal trend scoring to determine what to elevate. I don't object to Option 3 for Business Insider AI Bylines only as per GothicGolem29. Chetsford (talk) 14:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC); edited 01:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3. If Business Insider can't be bothered to write their stories, I have no confidence that their editors can be bothered to properly check them. The fact they apparently not to disclose AI use and plan to use it to distort images and videos only makes thing worse. Cortador (talk) 14:59, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm changing my vote to option 4 as per my comment below. Only tagging articles entirely written by AI isn't good enough. Cortador (talk) 22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that all AI-generated stories will be bylined "Business Insider AI" [20]. If we wanted, we could segregate BI in the same way we do with WP:FORBESCONTRIBUTORS and consider that byline non-RS. Chetsford (talk) 15:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 4. Any publication using LLM-generated content must surely be aware by now of its inherent (algorithmically-unavoidable) flaws - most notably its tendency to hallucinate. If they are prepared to foist that on their readers, declared or otherwise (and note Cortador's comment below regarding limits to their declarations [21]), one has to assume that they simply aren't interested in content accuracy, anywhere on their website. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:06, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 for Business Insider AI Bylines. Using AI for articles will seriously affect reliablity however, it looks like per what was noted by Chetsford and my own research that these AI articles will be under a AI byline and labeled as AI. So we should do what we do with WP:FORBESCONTRIBUTORS and list the AI articles as unreliable but not non AI Business Insider articles.GothicGolem29 (GothicGolem29 Talk) 15:12, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 4 per Andy the Grumpy person is clearly the best option here. - Walter Ego 15:53, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 4 per Andy. The fact that they're willing to use LLMs at all in articles reflects poorly on the intelligence of their editorial board. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• No change. Their AI policy says There is always human oversight when our journalists use AI, and they are responsible for the accuracy, fairness, originality, and overall quality of everything we publish. The risk of AI making stuff up, when people are to be held accountable, should be treated the same as the risk of people making stuff up—e.g, we judge sources for having editorial controls or not, with organizations taking responsibility for what they publish, and that should be the same here. If they do end up publishing fabricated information, then just like any other source that publishes fabricated information, we see it and go from there. Downgrading reliability without any evidence of actual published fabrication is premature and alarmist Placeholderer (talk) 18:14, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Struck my !vote per Grayfell. I maintain that a policy allowing regulated AI use isn't grounds for deprecation, but the issue is clearly more than that. I guess I'll wait for more information before another !vote, but I could end up supporting a 3+ Placeholderer (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No change per u:Placeholder's arguments. The argument that AI makes mistakes is similar to the argument that humans make mistakes. We don't downgrade every human-created media because of that. If the change leads to inaccuracies I'd be happy to support a downgrade but doing it preemptively seems like an overreaction. Alaexis_¿question? 20:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• No change for now They say that any pieces that involved AI will be clearly labeled, and these pieces can be evaluated on their own merits. I share PARAKANYAA's concern that a time-based deprecation is not workable. I am okay with considering AI bylined stuff to be generally unreliable, but I don't think this should extend to other BI content until we get a better handle on how this will effect the website in practice. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Business Insider stated that only pieces fully generated by AI will be labelled, not all pieces using AI. Cortador (talk) 07:54, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3 for content under the AI byline, or for all content if AI is also contributing substantive content outside the AI byline. -- LWG ^talk 22:35, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 4 Option 3 - BI isn't using AI to spend more time or money on fact-checking. Their over-worked, disinterested editorial department is not going to be doing a better job with AI. There is no way to confidently tell what percentage of any article is LLM generated. BI has shown that they prioritize expediency over accuracy or integrity. Grayfell (talk) 03:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC) -edit: yeah, deprecation is too drastic. Business Insider was created largely as a blog for a guy who was banned for life from trading securities, and was financed by a guy who's prior claim to fame was pioneering privacy invading banner adds. It was never great as journalism, but it's become so ubiquitous on Wikipedia that jumping to full deprecation would be disruptive. Grayfell (talk) 20:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you have any sources to say there's reason to doubt their accuracy? That's what this whole section should boil down to Placeholderer (talk) 07:45, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See below. Grayfell (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option not 4 The only thing I'm very confident of here is that we shouldn't deprecate. As PARAKANYAA points out below, deprecation can't be time-gated because deprecation is an edit filter. It is a deliberately blunt instrument and so regardless of how we want to treat this situation it's inappropriate here because everyone involved acknowledges that BI was reliable in the past. Loki (talk) 06:51, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 4 - Any site writing stories using AI should immediately be grounds for dismissal.

If you can't be arsed to write it, we simply won't cite it. Rambling Rambler (talk) 02:07, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 4 - Certainly unreliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2 at a minimum, including Culture (which I assume applies) until it's clear how AI use is going to impact their fact-checking overall. Option 3 for AI bylines seems reasonable as well. --Hipal (talk) 23:06, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 per previous consensus. Option 3 for AI bylines. Some editors have expressed concerns that Business Insider journalists may use AI without disclosure, but it is already a relatively common practice, Just more than half of the 286 journalists surveyed in Belgium and the Netherlands said they used generative AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT[22], there is no need to single out BI here. Kelob2678 (talk) 10:11, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 for AI bylines per above. Undecided on everything else. The Kip ^(contribs) 20:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 4 - With regret, it's time BI was put out to pasture as a source on EN WP. Essentially it has always had dubious editorial standards and it pretty much was always more the journalist who was writing the article that the what little reliability it had came from. LLM-generated content, with its attendant hallucinations, is the last straw. FOARP (talk) 10:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 for non-AI bylines (per previous consensus), Option 4 for AI bylines. The response from the writers' union there does not suggest good things about how well the AI articles will be edited, if they're not even sure who's going to be editing them. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:03, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 (for now). AI is unfortunately here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Obviously if a source is just 100% AI content, it should never be considered reliable. But if you universally downgrade any source that relies on AI at any point in their editorial process -- assuming they even disclose it -- how many reliable sources will you even be left with? (I don't know the answer to that, but I think the list would be significantly smaller).

I'm not sure if there have been any separate discussions on how to evaluate sources that are now using any proportion of AI content. If not, there probably should be. Maybe adding a separate metric just to grade their use of AI? (Example, a numerical/letter grade based on proportion of AI content, whether human editors review it, what level of transparency they use (like noting it in the byline), etc. There might even already be a reliable source that has set up some sort of grading system like that. I can check around. But for now, I would hold off on downgrading every source that uses AI whatsoever. BetsyRogers (talk) 23:13, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 4 this AI isn't being used marginally for grammatical errors, but it is used in a major way in their place from what I've seen. In fact, multiple articles have said that they've fired 21% of their staff because of this.

And yes, AI is the future, but I doubt in the far future it will hallucinate the way it does today. Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:03, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3 Churnalism, click-bait titles, and now AI generated content. Certainly unreliable. MrGerLib (talk) 05:09, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There have been a lot of RfCs on Business Insider in the past, with one discussion very recently talking about the switch to Artificial Intelligence. I don't think this is a bad RfC as a result. NotJamestack (talk) 10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which discussion is that? Cortador (talk) 11:52, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cortador This one. NotJamestack (talk) 14:33, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. From what Status writes, this includes using "A.I. tools for specific tasks and enhancements for images and video". That alone is dodgy since "enhancements" is a fancy term for "making things up", which doesn't bode well. Cortador (talk) 14:56, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@NotJamestack, can you share more details - how are they using AI and why do you think it impacts their reliability? Any examples of hallucinations that made their way into news pieces?articles? Alaexis_¿question? 13:02, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Alaexis From what I can see from the discussion I linked above, Business Insider will use ChatGPT without disclosing it to the article readers. A.I. has been know to be inaccurate, so I do feel like it will change reliability. NotJamestack (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I didn't notice the link at first. I think you'll agree that it's possible to use AI in a way that doesn't hurt and even enhances the quality. Humans are also widely known to be inaccurate sometimes. Let's wait and see whether this change produces inaccuracies - I don't think a preemptive change is warranted. Alaexis_¿question? 20:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A word of warning: Business Insider themselves writes that they will, in their own words "transparently label any products or content fully generated by AI". Emphasis mine. So if a story is partially slop, images are altered etc. they apparently won't disclose it. They also state that they will use AI to assist with fact-checking. How's that even supposed to work? AI itself is what needs the fact-checking in the first place. Cortador (talk) 15:43, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How exactly are we going to deprecate it for only post-AI stories? That is impossible with how deprecation works. To deprecate it we have to have an RFC for the entire publication because you cannot time limit deprecation because deprecation is an edit filter. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC is about the entire publication. The question above is how reliable Business Insider is after they started using AI tool, not how reliable their AI-generated articles are. Cortador (talk) 22:54, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but this would also deprecate their pre-AI articles. You cannot time limit deprecation because all deprecation knows is the URL. So this has to be an RfC on the entire history of Business Insider, or deprecation cannot be an option. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DEPS merely says that deprecation is typically enforced with an edit filter. The edit filter does not disallow edits but warns the user and tags the edit. So possible outcomes would be:

• List BI post-AI as deprecated but do not add it to the edit filter. It's not clear to me how practically this is different from listing it as generally unreliable, but it's at least nominally a thing we can do.
• List BI post-AI as deprecated; add BI in its entirety to the edit filter and accept some number of false positives (possibly it would be better to do this with a separate edit filter so we can give a custom message explaining the situation and make it easier for editors checking up on the filter to account for those false positives)
• List BI post-AI as deprecated; add only BI articles written after some cut-off date to the filter (articles have the year and month of publication in the url so this should be doable with regexes). This cuts down on the number of false positives in option 2 but makes the filter more susceptible to breaking if BI change their url scheme.

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:36, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure it's possible to attach a date to the filter? In other words "pre-AI" and "post-AI" require a date to make that distinction. BetsyRogers (talk) 06:42, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• @Placeholderer: There are plenty of sources for BI firing staff and aggressively shifting to AI ([23], [24], etc.) and being in bed with OpenAI ([25], etc.). BI often publishes vaguely proChatGPT puff-pieces like this without any disclosure. There's also self-citing ouroboros issue when BI generates a story from ChatGPT, which itself originated from BI, etc.

In August, BI took down an LLM-generated article for 'failing to meet standards'.[26] Taking down the article was a good thing, but they only did this after another news outlet pressed them on it. The article was fabricated. Apparently nobody is properly fact-checking these LLM articles. Wired also got taken by the same slop-monger, but Wired had the good sense to publish an article about it. Nothing from BI, as far as I can see. This isn't surprising. BI has a history of 'stealth' edits to articles without acknowledgement of any kind. This is a bad practice which damages BI's reputation regardless of LLMs. (This source mentions an example of this).

Here is an article co-written by a former BI editorial executive explaining why the track record for LLM tools in journalism is 'spotty, at best'. That source also points out that the use of LLMs requires more editorial oversight, not less, so they do not justify firing experienced editors.

As I said above, BI has always prioritized expediency over accuracy or integrity. This recent push is just an extension of that. Grayfell (talk) 21:08, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That does look bad. Updating my !vote... Placeholderer (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That incident isn't really the same thing -- it's a freelancer submitting AI hoaxes to a lot of places, basically an LLM Jayson Blair, and not one of Business Insider's own AI articles (which don't seem to exist yet). Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:10, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Society, sports, and culture When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Is Times Now ...

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

Chetsford (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 reliable for anything not related to Indian politics or Hindu nationalism. Our article on Times Now isn't in great shape and should not be used as a definitive guide to evaluate this.

• Meets our standard for WP:USEBYOTHERS outside of Indian politics; e.g. Straits Times, [27] TIME, [28] Jerusalem Post, [29] Al Jazeera, [30] South China Morning Post, [31] etc.
• While some editors have raised concerns in past discussions about the reliability of its coverage of the BJP, there has never been an objection to its coverage outside those topics and the fact it's in a joint partnership with Reuters [32], which is unambiguously RS is worth taking note. At the very least, as a subsidiary of the Times of India, it would be hard to imagine it would be less reliable than the parent (which we currently subject to "additional considerations", those considerations being attentiveness to AI and advertorials).
• It obviously has a gatekeeping process and a publication record, and I can find no record of it failing any factchecks after checking all the usual suspect F/C entities, (outside of presentation issues related to Indian politics and Hindu nationalism).

There should be no reason we treat it more stringently than WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS vs WP:FOXNEWS. Leaving this in limbo removes a major source for topics related to contemporary India that sit outside the political arena. Chetsford (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 or 3, low editorial standards which appear to only be dropping as time goes on... There also seems to be ongoing issues with mixing opinion and news content in an unclear way, some of that can be written of to clickbait or sensationalism but it doesn't speak in their favor. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:06, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Οption 3. A strong political bias is never bottled and isolated. It leaks and spreads across almost every kind of reporting. The most trivial examples of that typical phenomenon will be found in the realms of sports and culture. Therefore, having established that Times Now is virtually a political propaganda organ, we should keep it at a safe distance from the pool of reliable sources. -The Gnome (talk) 10:10, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• "having established that Times Now is virtually a political propaganda organ" That was established? Chetsford (talk) 13:40, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Irrevocably so. -The Gnome (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I didn't get that memo. Chetsford (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2. Their handling of the Jasleen Kaur story is a bit concerning (though it was almost 10 years ago). Other controversies mentioned in our article have to do with bias rather than reliability. Alaexis_¿question? 15:19, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are biased sources reliable, then? -The Gnome (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bias is not a standalone determinant of reliability; see WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Chetsford (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I went for option 3 on the basis of the guideline you invoke. To wit: Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. -The Gnome (talk) 12:20, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering Seems to pass all three of those for topics not related to Indian politics or Hindu nationalism (the construction of this RfC). Chetsford (talk) 20:41, 3 November 2025 (UTC)}[reply]

• Option 2. Seems generally reliable outside of the aforementioned topics by Chetsford.Katzrockso (talk) 02:44, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Times Now has been repeatedly discussed across this noticeboard (e.g. here, here, here, here, etc.) and most recently last month [33]. It's occasionally cited across the project. Chetsford (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This source is being used in three articles to support the same claim.

Three articles use it: Timeline of women in religion in the United States, Timeline of women in religion and Timeline of women's ordination.

The text is either the same or similar to this one: "For the first time in American history, a Buddhist ordination was held where an American woman (Sister Khanti-Khema) took the Samaneri (novice) vows with an American monk (Bhante Vimalaramsi) presiding. This was done for the Buddhist American Forest Tradition at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center in Missouri."

I'll be mentioning the AfD for "Vimalaramsi" and the "Dhamma Sukha Organization" as a supporting argument, not as a definitive recommendation. The AfD closed Vimalaramsi's article with result delete for lack of Notability. All of its sources were either self-published or press releases placed by the Dhammasukha.org organization.

These three pages use a source from an affiliated organization to "Kanti Khema", described by the article passages as being the "first ordained buddhist nun in the US." There is no way to attest this information - i.e that she is the "First nun in american history" from any reliable secondary sources, nor are they presented anywhere for examination.

Dhammasukha.org (referenced in these pages through archive.org) has four components that disqualify it as a reliable source: (I). Primary. (II). Affiliated with the subject. (III.) Non-notable and (IV). Cannot be confirmed by reliable secondary sources. Therefore, it appears to quote groundless information regarding the subject as being "The first in american history". Article text should be cleared of its controversial claim to fame or removed entirely from all pages. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 07:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All of its sources were either self-published - nope; Natalie Quli is not self-published, see diif, which was removed by this editor from his talkpage as he perceived it as harassmenrt, an accusation for which they have been warned diff; see also User talk:Monkeysmashingkeyboards#Please remain civil.. Their attitude has detoriated rapidly into WP:BATTLEGROUND; see User talk:Deathnotekll2#What's up, from Deathnotekll and User talk:Deathnotekll2#About. Regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:26, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is the Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Comment on the merit of the proposal or discussion instead of attacking the proponent.

Natalie Quili is not being discussed here, nor is the AfD per se. Read the proposal correctly.

No administrative warnings have been placed in my account. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 07:28, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming that you have no evidence that the claim is false, and assuming that the claim is plausible, I believe that the claim should be attributed to the organization that made it, rather than stating it as fact in Wikipedia's voice. But I do not see your concerns in themself to be an argument to entirely remove the claim. Cullen328 (talk) 07:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Very well. However, the claim is not plausible.

Remember we are discussing. I am not attempting to force my conclusion.

The claims are quite boastful, actually. They are similar to saying an unknown person with no verifiable notability has been the indisputable best at something or that they have met Einstein.

How is one to say it isn't a lie? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 07:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stating that a woman is the first at a fairly obscure but significant accomplishment is not boastful and nowhere near comparable to an assertion that a person is indisputably the best at something. If a person was accomplished in physics and mathematics in the 50 years preceding 1955, it is not implausible to claim that they met Einstein. After all, Einstein loved intellectual conversations with a wide range of people although he did not enjoy conventional small talk and chit-chat. He was not reclusive.

What is your evidence that this specific claim is not plausible? Does the organization making the claim have an established reputation for making false claims? Do you have evidence, for example, of a previously ordained Buddhist nun in the United States? Cullen328 (talk) 07:59, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You see, the Onus of Proof, often summarized by the maxim affirmanti, non neganti, incumbit probatio (the proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies), is precisely the case here.

The organization is required to prove that such a bold claim is true. A company can claim its product is the best in the market with no supporting evidence to back their assertion. It'll be dismissed as marketing propaganda. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:57, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We commonly deal with such matters by attributing the claim to the person or entity that made the claim as opposed to stating that it is true in Wikipedia's voice. We do not usually deal with evidence free doubts like yours by completely erasing the claim. I have asked repeatedly for evidence that this is false and you have provided nothing more than your strident skepticism. Cullen328 (talk) 08:37, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Policy and guidelines are subject to interpretation.

Should Wikipedia also deal with evidence free claims, then? The opposite of evidence free doubt equally applies as well.

I haven't checked yet for additional evidence that contradicts the unsupported claim presented by the article passages that many of its supporters here wish to unambiguously defend. You demand and insist I do, and maybe I will. It's appropriate I demand back equally that you do your own research in the opposite fashion, i.e prove that the claim you defend is true. Maybe if that is done by both sides, a conclusion will be reached.

Personal commentary: I'm actually delighted you labeled me as a "strident skeptic". That's exactly the boldness Wikipedia needs. Really, I took no offense. I liked it. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:31, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For something to be a WP:RFC (that has a particular meaning here), the steps on that page needs to be followed. But just having a discussion about something is fine, too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:53, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I second this. @Deathnotekll2, I highly recommend you take a look at WP:BEFORERFC and WP:RFC. Wikieditor662 (talk) 16:38, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted to challenge a source so editors could examine it and remove it side-wide if applicable.

I couldn't find a consensus-style process to do so, so I posted here after being recommended to do so by another user.

Anyway, as Gråbergs Gråa Sång said, I'll stay here so we can debate it, challenge it or support it. If necessary, I will open a formal RfC after studying the necessary conditions to do so in full. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:51, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've renamed the section, this isn't a WP:RFC and the title is only a distraction from any other discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:33, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Sorry. I'm new here.

I didn't understand why the title would be a "distraction" though, as I didn't intend for that. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because RfCs are formal proposals that often have many users !voting in, so having a non RfC be titled as an RfC can confuse people, and bring them here instead of other, geuine RfCs. Does that make sense? Wikieditor662 (talk) 19:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does. I think.

Where and how can I open a formal RfC on this topic if need arises, by the way?

It's probably best to do so after this discussion ends, right? Or so I'd assume for now. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:59, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see any reason you would need to open RFC on this at any point. I wouldn't suggest even thinking about them until you have more experience and understand what they are for. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:01, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Are they that difficult to open? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:03, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Again, if you really want to know, I suggest taking a look at WP:BEFORERFC and WP:RFC. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:07, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:09, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RFC says how you can open a RFC. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 20:06, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"RfCs are time-consuming, and Wikipedia being a volunteer project, editor time is valuable. If you are considering an RfC to resolve a dispute between editors, you should try first to resolve your issues other ways."

The RfC page quotes that. Do you think the Reliable Sources/Noticeboard is a good alternative to a WP:BEFORERFC? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:09, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and it's also important to note what the opinions on the request are. If the proposal is universally accepted/rejected, then per WP:SNOW there's no need for an RfC. Same goes if it can be resolved in some other way. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:12, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

About this stuff: components that disqualify it as a reliable source: (I). Primary. (II). Affiliated with the subject. (III.) Non-notable and (IV). Cannot be confirmed by reliable secondary sources

@Deathnotekll2, you seem to have confused the rules for WP:General notability guideline with the rules for Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. WP:PRIMARY sources can be reliable for article content; non-independent sources can be reliable for article content; non-notable sources can be reliable for article content (and if that weren't true, then most textbooks and reference works would be banned); and information that isn't truly exceptional doesn't require more than one source.

I suggest reading the FAQ at the top of Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, the bullet list at WP:NOTGOODSOURCE, and also Wikipedia:Independent does not mean secondary (because a lot of editors confuse the two). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Got it.

One thing though: the case we're discussing involves the use (or claim) of something exceptional through a primary source alone. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 06:35, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to take your word for it that this is really "exceptional", but is your concern really that it's primary, or that it's not independent? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can take it.

It's because of the exceptional nature of the claim presented by both a primary and not independent source. The claim is "that a female Buddhist priest is the very first in American History", ordained by a specific monk in a specific meditation center.

Okay... if it's true. How can we know it though? The affirmation is exceptional, and yet it can't be verified by anyone other than the organization directly affiliated with said priest. The only source is theirs. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 21:58, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Deathnotekll2, are you mainly worried that they didn't actually ordain her ("Only the organization that ordained her can verify that they actually did this"), or are you worried that someone else did it first, and she's actually the second or third or forty-second (in which case, how could this be verified by the organization affiliated with her?)?

For WP:V purposes, the point of verifiability isn't to determine whether the source is correct. It's for people to be able to determine whether the Wikipedia article got the information from a reliable source (and not, e.g., from an editor's own imagination). That means that if the reliable source has an error (e.g., it misquotes someone), then that error is still verifiable and compliant with the WP:V policy (though obviously if we have actual knowledge of the source's error, we should remove the error from the Wikipedia article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Found a source that is not just a press release (it specifically has a reporter gathering some information within it.) "Vimalaramsi has founded an order of nuns, which he calls Pearls of the Purple Nuns. Sister Khanti-Kema is the first nun, taking her novice ordination in September 2006." The paper is the Wayne County Journal-Banner, the first part of the article is here and the second part (which has the quote) is here. The same article ran a week later in the Reynolds County Courier. Perhaps these sources will obliterate the need to evaluate the existing sources. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:54, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. But the newspaper says she is the "first nun of the Pearls of the Purple Nuns", not that she is "The First in American History" as Dhammasukha.org says. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 18:03, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deathnotekll2, It's time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. You've gotten no support here. Please find some other way to contribute constructively to the project. At this point you're wasting everyone's time. Toddst1 (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you speak on behalf of the entire Wikipedia and all of its editors?

Are you attempting to pressure for the closure of this discussion? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deathnotekll2, I wrote a page giving advice to people who find themselves in the exact situation you are in. A lot of folks say that it helped them. You can find it at WP:1AM. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• To get back to the actual issue, what exactly is being contested? It seems that from other sources that Sister Khanti-Khema was ordained in the US by Bhante Vimalaramsi[34]. Is it that this was not the first woman ordained by an American on US soil? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If it's is the latter you will need a source showing that an earlier ordination of this kind happpened. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Maybe, but not necessarily.

  The organization responsible for the claim has the onus of proof.

  A source proving an earlier event happened can be used as supporting evidence. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Nope, reliable sources say it was the first as per the link in my comment. It's now on you to show otherwise. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:44, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Precisely. This information is not verifiable in any way.

  An ordination - by the catholic church, by a buddhist temple, whatever it is - is a small event that generally does not cause the need for examination of its factual data.

  However, the three articles spin the idea that she is "the first in history", asserting a bold claim to fame. Otherwise, why would she even be mentioned in the article?

  If one were to insert a random priest no one heard about as "being simply ordained by another", Wikipedia would readily remove the passage as it is unimportant. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  As per my link the Sri-Lankan Daily Mirror, which would be considered generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG, says she was the first such ordained woman. At this point it's up to you to show reliable sources that it isn't the case, as sources show say it was. That you may personally think it isn't plausible doesn't matter, you need to have something to back it up. That's either something to show that the statement itself is false, or an early ordination actually happened. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In case you didn't know, the Daily Mirror Sri Lanka's article you have quoted is a press release placed by the organization "DhammaSukha.org"

  It is not journalism.

  For more information, see Woodroar's analysis in "Bhante Vimalaramsi's" AfD (2nd Nomination). Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:47, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Where does it say that it's a press release, I can't find anything in the article to that effect? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:50, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Reading Woodroar analysis I would disagree, I don't see that it's definitely a press release. It's obviously based on details that have been, at least in part, provide by Bhante Vimalaramsi Mahathera or whoever was organising his talk, but I don't think it can be dismissed as a press release without any other evidence. That wouldn't have made any difference to the AfD, one source doesn't make an article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:59, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Take a look at a different article from the same newspaper: https://www.dailymirror.lk/latest-news/Elon-Musks-1tn-pay-deal-approved-by-Tesla-shareholders/342-324342

  Now, compare it to this one: https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Dhamma-Teaching-for-Daily-Life/131-140058

  What is the difference between them? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 21:12, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Attributed, solved. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 21:20, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• So, this I wouldn't classify as a press release. But it is definitely not a secondary source, but a primary one. It's a self claim and for "first" claims, you need actual secondary sourcing to back it up. There is a lot more scrutiny given to "first" claims.

Then, this source was brought up and I don't know why? It confirms that Khanti-Khema was the first nun at this organization, it does not support the claim of her being the first nun in American history to undergo a Buddhist ordination. It doesn't seem to even make that claim?

Do you have a source that actually backs up the stated claim itself, Nat Gertler? Because, if not, then no, the sentence shouldn't be kept in any article. You don't have a source for it. It's self-published at best, blatant OR at worst. Silverseren^C 05:06, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say it's an exact source for the claim precisely as it now stands; it supports more a claim of "the first by buddhist monk V" than "the first by a buddhist monk (V)". Whether that is a statement worth making (or even if the existing statement would be worth making if verifiable), I leave to others. It does put at least a little dent in the OP's argument that the AfDs mean there were no independent sources, as this provides at least some source for Dhamma Sukha. (It's probematic about the man himself, as it says it's getting the biographic information from the web.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 06:04, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I have to agree that the soaring is definitely not sufficient to support the claim. Per wikipedia:EXTRAORDINARY, extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. The sourcing here is weak. I support removing the claim from all articles.4meter4 (talk) 05:23, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This source has been cited in some biographical articles and drafts. Is it generally unreliable for biographies? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:48, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Going by the front page, this appears not so much a source as a host. Looking at the first few links that you bring up, it appears to be being used for about-self-type material. Asking whether it's reliable is like asking if wordpress or any other blog host is reliable -- it depends on the individual user site and what it's being used for. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:10, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through the articles and drafts[35] they all appear to be WP:ABOUTSELF or links to beacons.ai as the official URL of the subject. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:30, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Beacons.ai, a platform self-described as "Powered by AI", publishes a blog full of obviously LLM-generated content marketing posts, all of which ends in a call-to-action advertisement for Beacons.ai. These posts are claimed to be authored by a single individual named "Gabby Reyes" of the "Beacons Editorial Team", and despite the stated role, show no evidence of editorial oversight. Examples include "Salish Matter Bio: Age, Family & Facts" cited in Draft:Salish Matter, and "Sharky Bio: Age, Family & Facts" cited in Draft:Sharky (YouTuber). These pages are generally unreliable per WP:RSML and WP:SPS, and should never be used to substantiate claims about living people per WP:BLPSPS.

Also, Linktree was added to the global spam blacklist after it was abused to bypass the local spam blacklist, and Beacons.ai may also be added to the global spam blacklist if it is abused in a similar way, per WP:ELREDIRECT. — Newslinger talk 11:40, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ive wondered what this site is. I see it on social media a lot. It looks like a hosting site for random stuff. I cant imagine it would be acceptable for RS. ← Metallurgist (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I previously used this in an edit so as to source the etymology of the word "oncology." Judging by our article on it, Etymonline appears to be reliable for word etymologies, though I would like to hear what others here think about its reliability. Has it been discussed before? Amateur Truther (talk) 15:03, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The last discussion about it appears to beWikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 306#etymonline from August 2020, it wasn't very positive. The main issue appears to be that it's a work by an non-expert[36], see it's 'about us' page[37]. It does have a list of source that were used that might be of help to find better sources[38]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:SPS: Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. The authors of Etymonline are not subject-matter experts, as they are neither etymologists nor lexicologists. Etymonline is a self-published source with seemingly no editorial policy. The veracity of the individual entries are difficult to verify as the sources are just relegated to one massive list (no one's gonna fact check that!).

Etymonline is cited widely by both amateurs and scholars, but I have not seen any thorough assessment of its accuracy or academic rigour. The claims I found about Etymonline in papers on Google Scholar were vague or presented without evidence/sourcing.

In any case, I'd rather we defer to peer-reviewed sources and publications by subject-matter experts rather than blogs. ArcticSeeress (talk) 07:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware it's considered a bit of a dodgy source by some etymologists / historical linguists. One thing I noticed about it long ago is that it gives half-assed spellings of PIE roots without laryngeals and tone marks (see "name" for example), which is just negligent for an English etymology dictionary. There are other sources which explain the root of "oncology", like MW. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:45, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I find it hard to imagine a situation where Etymonline should be cited. It lacks all indicia of reliability and is never consulted by lexicographers. (I am a member of the American Dialect Society, the leading American society of lexicographers, and Etymonline simply never comes up.) Meanwhile, excellent etymological sources are readily available. For example, OneLook provides links to multiple dictionaries with etymological information. John M Baker (talk) 09:27, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are much better options. It looks SPS and doesnt cite its sources or research. Looking at offwiki discussions on reddit quora etc, it doesnt seem well regarded even if it is usually correct. Something that should be easy to provide its derivation often does not do so. Altho I know they are cited in probably thousands of articles here. ← Metallurgist (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For example, Oxford does mention where first attestations occurred. Etymonline does not. ← Metallurgist (talk) 05:38, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen it used on many articles and I saw it mentioned on some discussions on the noticeboard archives, but I am wondering if anyone knows how to treat this source, and if this should be with certain caveats or not. It is currently (unless I made a mistake with Ctrl+F) not mentioned on the perennial sources list. Slomo666 (talk) 18:36, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reliability of a source depends on its context. Please supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:50, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies,

I think I misunderstood the purpose of the noticeboard. I don't dispute the source's reliability, I just ran into it a number of times and wondered if such a niche publication can be considered generally reliable. Sorry.

The most recent encounter I had would be one where an individual is cited by them:

"Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?"

in International Association of Genocide Scholars

to support

Jürgen Zimmerer argued that instead of genocide being an aberration, perhaps "the world system is itself the root cause of genocide". A number of scholars, including Zimmerer, founded INoGS as an alternative to the IAGS.

(At least, if my adjacent edit has not accidentally moved things around too much.)

Slomo666 (talk) 19:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There it’s being cited for his opinion not for a fact, so the question is more about whether his opinion is due which in this case it seems to be. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually what I said is probably not quite right as JC was reporting his opinion and the fact that he founded INoGS. I think articles by its own staff or by external subject matter experts would be generally reliable for that sort of claim but that it’s a weaker source than more heavyweight RSs and not good for anything extraordinary or contentious. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In this instance I would say the source is fine, as it's not making any extraordinary claims and what it reports is inline with ABOUTSELF comments from INoGS. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:01, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

is the claim contested? it would be nice to have seen some talk page discussion, instead of bringing directly to WP:RSN. I still do not see much of a reason for discussion here yet. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 23:41, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I should not have brought it here in the first place. I misunderstood the point of the noticeboard. I don't think anyone disputes this claim. Slomo666 (talk) 23:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My impression of it has generally been positive and I have not heard of any reason to think otherwise. It's niche in the sense that it is a magazine representing the perspectives of left-leaning or progressive American Jews but as a relatively small publication it punches above its weight. Opinions published there may be controversial, but I am not aware of it ever having published falsities (unlike, say, The Jewish Chronicle in the UK). For more background see The New Yorker: [39] (this Wikipedia page has a mention in the article). I'd consider Jewish Currents generally reliable. Andreas JN466 15:04, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. Thanks for the detailed description. Slomo666 (talk) 15:22, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Rainsage (talk) 21:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If its not discussed, its usually fine if it meets the general guidelines for RS. Also depends on the article. ← Metallurgist (talk) 06:18, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jewish currents is not a reliable source. One of it's major donors has ties to the Iranian Government through a lobbying group called NIAC which has been labeled as a foreign agent working on behalf of the interests of Tehran. See here for an article on the donor and Jewish Currents [[40]] and here for a piece on NIAC and their relationship with the IRGC: [[41]] Agnieszka653 (talk) 21:40, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The poltico article does not say the NIAC has ties to the iranian regime. Rather ironic you would post RS abuse on the RS noticeboard: the free beacon is considered "generally unreliable" also per Reliable sources/Perennial sources#The Washington Free Beacon. Slomo666 (talk) 22:19, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"RS abuse"? Also, have another look at WP:FREEBEACON. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 22:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My sincere apologies Slomo666 (talk) 22:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first source does not say that Francis Najafi is a "major donor" to Jewish Currents; it says he donated $25,000 to them (their 2023 revenue was $1.6 million) and $600,000 to NIAC. His foundation also donated to the Biden Victory Fund, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Atlantic Council, the American Diabetes Association, and Johns Hopkins University.

The second source does not mention the IRGC at all. It says that NIAC has been accused of being an agent of the Iranian gov, but those allegations have not been proven.

Anyway, unless Jewish Currents has published multiple falsehoods related to Najafi or Iran, I don't see how this matters. Rainsage (talk) 22:36, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Rainsage. None of the claims about Najafi are data points for lower reliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most of JC's content should be treated per WP:RSOPINION, probably including much of what it labels as "reports." A longtime JC contributor who now blogs at TOI has noted its slide into one-sidedness and omissions. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 22:44, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

the contributor themselves is writing in an oped/WP:NEWSBLOG. thats not really enough to suggest anything factual in terms of JC.

regardless, they seem to group their factual reporting under the report tag, and op-ed style reporting under analysis. WP:DUE applies as to any sourcing, of course. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 03:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It suggests the fact that someone intimately familiar with the outlet has watched it change for the worse. Narrative-spinning as tendentious as what goes on at JC is not redeemed by sticking a "Report" label on it. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:35, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

it suggest its an oped claiming another oped is an oped. the oped also goes into predictable claims about how focus on diversity is inherently disqualifying.

I see nothing "intimately familiar" in that oped, beyond gripes about bias. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:30, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see nothing "intimately familiar" in that oped He worked with them for 23 years. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 19:56, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

and yet it is the same familiar gripes. there are not talks about the process, there is no discussion about journalistic practices, its just gripes about how the author doesn't agree.

the oped has no value in dismissing it except that the author doesn't agree with other opeds. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:59, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bluethricecreamman is correct. The blogpost presents a political disagreement with JC not a problem with its standards of accurate reporting.

Anti-Zionism isn’t a form of unreliability any more than Zionism is BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:58, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not per se, but a sufficiently zealous effort to expunge all possible pro-Israel perspectives, no matter how qualified, leads to inaccuracies and falsehoods of omission because the situation there is complicated. See, for instance, the train wreck that is the Gaza genocide article. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 03:45, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

the oped also goes into predictable claims about how focus on diversity is inherently disqualifying That's not what he said at all and now I wonder if you actually read it. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 03:38, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For context, I'm a participant in the topic area alongside Wikipedia:GS/ACAS. Frequently I encounter a number of citations attributed to Syriac Press, and I have even cited some articles from the page myself. However, owing to the concerns of reliability for the site Assyria Post (post above), I wanted to enquire about this site as well. Based on the above post, there are criteria that are cause for concern about SP's reliability:

• The about page details aims and objectives of the site, as well as a span of coverage. Similarly to AP, there is no editorial policy listed (although there is a page outlining guidelines for article contributors), and the contact page has only a single email address.
• WHOIS for SP has all contact and personal information for the site owners listed as "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY".
• Social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram) provide no info on who runs the site.
• Articles do not cite contributors; see a recent example [42]
• The CiteHighlighter script by Novem Linguae marks SP with orange since "blog" is used in its URL
• Another contributor in the topic area, @Shmayo, has also contested content by SyriacPress, see for example [43]. There are also suggestions that the site is run by Dawronoye, which Shmayo has mentioned previously (hence why I'm pinging them to this discussion if they can provide more info on this).

Any input on the reliability of SP will be greatly beneficial, especially since a lot of articles in the topic area cite it as a source. Surayeproject3 (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Their opinion section lists some of their authors. LDW5432 (talk) 19:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think your skepticism is reasonable. It shares many of the same qualities with Assyria Post discussed above, and it seems more like a blog with occasional external contributors. I cannot find any RSs that use the Syriac Press as a source. Based on these findings, I don't think Syriac Press should be used a source on Wikipedia, especially not on BLPs. Caveat: the standard WP:SPS policy probably applies to the articles written by named contributors: Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. ArcticSeeress (talk) 15:20, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Surayeproject3, you should probably look at WP:NOTGOODSOURCE. The kinds of things you're looking at are tangential. We actually don't care how they register their domain name (protecting privacy is the default for some registrars) or whether their social media pages make it easy to doxx the staff.

I'm not saying that this is a reliable source, but you should look at things like whether they issue corrections for mistakes before you look at things like how many e-mail addresses are on the website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call trying to find out the editors or authors of a publication (if there indeed are any) the same as doxxing. This information makes it easier to figure out their credentials and whether the source is independent. WP:SOURCE states that these are important characteristics that WP editors use to discuss the potential reliability of a source. ArcticSeeress (talk) 09:24, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ArcticSeeress So let's say, hypothetically, that either of these two publications begin to have attributed individuals and is clear what their position is / who they're affiliated with. The articles are also cited elsewhere in other publications. Would this be cause for a new discussion regarding their reliability? Surayeproject3 𖢗 19:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I can't predict the future, but if the source does change, then consensus on its relability would probably change. That consensus would likely be achieved through discussion (though that isn't stricly speaking necessary, see WP:Consensus and, more specifically, WP:Consensus can change). Most of the time, when consensus on a source's reliablity changes, it is mostly for the worse, e.g. Red Ventures' ZDNET, which was "downgraded" from "generally reliable" to "generally unreliable". Other times, they may be "upgraded", e.g. the Washington Free Beacon, where the consensus changed from "generally unreliable" to "generally reliable". If the Syriac Press does change to become more reliable, I would be happy to change my mind. ArcticSeeress (talk) 19:53, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, @ArcticSeeress, you wouldn't call it doxxing, because you (presumably) don't have any malign intent towards them. But posting staff information in public does make it easier for other, less benign entities to doxx their staff. Or to arrest them, for that matter. They might prioritize the safety of their staff over making it easy for people to know their names. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In what way have they been unreliable? Where have they made any mistakes? LDW5432 (talk) 14:32, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Website CollegePollArchive.com is used as the primary data source for all of the historic AP poll articles such as 1936 college football rankings and 1948–49 NCAA men's basketball rankings. Search shows 127 results across many articles.

Also frequently referenced at football and basketball team and season articles such as Michigan Wolverines football, Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball, 1940 college football season, 1937–38 NCAA football bowl games, etc. Used on BLPs such as Andrew Luck.

Contact page shows that the site is run by one keith *at* collegepollarchive [dot] com. Contact page uses the singular pronouns "I" and "me". Keith "will try to respond to your message as soon as I can, but that is normally limited to evenings and weekends, and only as my personal schedule allows."

Is College Poll Archive a reliable source? Is it a self-published source? If the site is self-published, is Keith an established expert in the relevant field who would qualify for WP:USINGSPS? Should College Poll Archive be cited on Wikipedia? PK-WIKI (talk) 06:25, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding WP:USEBYOTHERS, a Google Books search for "collegepollarchive", "soonerstats", and "AP Poll archive" (the latter two are former names that appear on the bottom of the website) shows a total of 18 books that cite it. Four are from publishers I recognize as reliable (Bloomsbury, Taylor & Francis, Simon & Schuster, University of Nebraska Press), but there are also several others which I do not know the reliability of. Perhaps someone with more knowledge and/or time to research can vouch for the quality of the other books. Left guide (talk) 08:01, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

College Poll Archive is plainly a self-published source, failing the first sentence of the policy Anyone can create a personal web page. The contact page states the website is run by the mononymous Keith, who updates it "only as my personal schedule allows."

No evidence can be found that Keith is an established subject-matter expert whose work in the relevant field has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. Note that this is a different requirement than any evidence that the site has been WP:USEDBYOTHERS. Links or citations to this website do nothing to establish Keith as an expert; Keith's work would need to have been independently published by a reliable third-party source. PK-WIKI (talk) 07:58, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The evidence leads to the conclusion that College Poll Archive is a self-published site, since Keith does not even have staff to answer emails. However, what expertise should be expected for a site that contains this content? Does someone need to be an expert in the field of collegiate athletics to compile the information presented? All he has done is found polls and compiled the information in one convenient place. There isn't any opinion or analysis presented on the site. It seems the relevant expertise here might be something unrelated to college athletics. For instance, isn't it reasonable that a person with a master's degree in library science would be better equipped to present accurate information on this website than a college sports journalist with 30 years of reporting experience? Keith is, at the very least, aware of his human frailty and expresses a willingness to consider corrections to the information he has, which is clearly not the same as someone independently reviewing his work prior to publication. There is no question that citations to polls published in newspapers would be higher quality references, but an error in Keith's work would need to be identified in order for that to change a single word in any Wikipedia article. I've used College Poll Archive for convenience in the past, and I have never found an error on the several occasions I saw the same information published in a secondary source. Of course, that does not prove Keith's error rate is zero, but it is at least possible that it might be, particularly given how long the site has been live and his willingness to accept feedback. Finding a newspaper source that published the February 6, 1961 AP basketball poll is not a difficult task. However, if College Poll Archive is banned as a reference, and the large number of articles that cite it become essentially unreferenced (in the case of poll articles) or lacking references in the case of other articles, it would be a huge undertaking to acquire reliable sources for each one of those references. When that task is completed, it is at least possible not a single word of the text of any article has changed. If that is the end result, will the encyclopedia have been improved? Instead, does it make sense to test the reliability of College Poll Archive before such a huge project is created? For instance, suppose 100 of the polls on College Poll Archive are compared with the same polls published by reliable secondary sources, and zero errors are found. Would it then still be worthwhile to delete all the references and replace them with secondary references? Finally, any editor is free to hunt down better quality references and replace the ones to College Poll Archive. Therefore, anyone who feels strongly about this can just go ahead and get started without the need to make College Poll Archive an unacceptable reference ab initio. Instead, editors can be advised to cease using it after a date near the present. That would stop the bleeding without disrupting articles that currently cite College Poll Archive. Taxman1913 (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason why we cannot directly cite the AP Poll itself? Surely it would have been published in newspapers at the time. Pinguinn 🐧 15:26, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we definitely should. Would make for a far more useful citation on the encyclopedia. PK-WIKI (talk) 16:32, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources says the following for the The Daily Beast:

There is no consensus on the reliability of The Daily Beast. Most editors consider The Daily Beast a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons.

On April 15, 2024, Joanna Coles and Ben Sherwood acquired a minority stake of The Daily Beast; Coles was assigned to be in charge of editorial operations as the chief creative and content officer.^[1] Since then, in addition to layoffs, twenty-two out of thirty-five members of The Daily Beast union took a buyout.^[2] Furthermore, Tracy Connor, who had been editor in chief since 2021, was replaced by Hugh Dougherty, formerly a deputy editor of the New York Post.^[3] Various publications have raised concerns regarding the editorial direction of Coles who seems to favor listicles and eccentric ideas and posed ethical concerns regarding fact-checking and conflicts of interest.^[1][2][4] The article "Joe Biden Didn’t Poop Himself But These Celebs Did" was given as an example.^[2]

One incident that may be concerning is an article of dubious factuality that was silently deleted without notice.^[5] Since Wikipedia editors would generally archive a now-dead link per WP:LINKROT rather than assume the content was removed because of an error, this raises viability concerns for use on Wikipedia.

While I don't think this warrants a downgrade from WP:NOCON to WP:QUESTIONABLE, I do think it warrants a disclaimer in the summary similar to Buzzfeed News or Newsweek. Perhaps, citing The New York Times,^[1] something like this:

John Kinslow (talk) 06:33, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you suggest to use the wording "some editors" when, as of the making of this comment, it's just you? Cortador (talk) 16:47, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that wording was chosen to match the diction used in other summaries. Using the phrase "An editor" or attributing the notice to me would suffice as well. John Kinslow (talk) 04:38, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Its a trashy tabloid it shouldn't be used at all outside of very specific contexts. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:23, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And basically a blog with multiple authors. ← Metallurgist (talk) 06:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dawn (newspaper)/Dawn.com "the largest English newspaper in Pakistan, and is widely considered the country's newspaper of record" and mostly treated as GREL at enwiki (though not listed at RSP) was caught using ChatGPT after it mistakenly published the suggested prompt in its print and online editions. [44], [45], [46].

The prompt itself has been removed from its online editions but the article remains as is with an editorial note now noting [47]:

This report published in today’s Dawn was originally edited using AI, which is in violation of our current AI policy. The policy is available on our website and can be reviewed here. The original report also carried AI-generated artefact text from the editing process, which has been edited out in the digital version. The matter is being investigated, and the violation of AI policy is regretted.

The article where the prompt appeared did carry the byline of its "ace business reporter Aamir Shafaat Khan" but not sure if the problem is more entrenched. I have used this as an RS but wonder if this warrants more caution. Gotitbro (talk) 07:21, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is of course just one incident, but I'm not particularly sold by their AI policy: they state that AI is permitted to be used for "audio/video editing and enhancement" with "human verification", but also state that it's not permitted to use to "manipulate[d] photos of real events". If you "enhance" an image with AI, you are already manipulating it.

They also state that they will note when "substantial AI assistance is used in content creation, an editor’s note/label will be included" i.e. they already admit that not all AI content will actually be labelled. What qualifies as "substantial"? Who knows. The paper also reserves the right to now label AI slop ads because "decisions about labelling for sponsored content are made by our editorial team according to the AI policy". The latter is less concerning since we won't use ads as sources anyway, but this "We'll tell you if we feel like it attitude" doesn't instil confidence. Cortador (talk) 13:56, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That might be a bit too pedantic. Photojournalists have some rules about what's allowed (like you're not allowed to ask people to stand in a particular place and then present the staged portrait as if it were a candid snap), and those allow some kinds of photo editing (e.g., contrast, brightness) but not others, which are considered manipulating the content.

(We can cite advertisements. They are reliable primary sources for their own content. Of course, you're almost never going to have a reason to cite one, but it's okay if you need to cite some technical detail about a notable manufactured product, or if the advertisements themselves are notable, such as Apple Inc. advertising.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:12, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully it's a one time thing, but something to keep an eye on... Rainsage (talk) 06:41, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: This is a pretty egregious editorial error. It's basically equivalent to saying aloud, "yep, ChatGPT is one of our writers!" If it were my decision, I would say they are immediately unreliable as this would have almost certainly happened in other articles, it's just with this one they got caught out. This is definitely one that'll need a close eye kept on it, without blinking! 11WB (talk) 17:03, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I guess I would be more concerned if there were actual falsehoods found in their articles. It seems like everyone is using AI these days. Rainsage (talk) 17:24, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• FWIW CJR's coverage of media disinformation in the India-Pakistan conflict notes Dawn rather favorably, though indirectly so. In at least one case, they're used as a counter-example of having provided fact-checking of other outlet's disinformation. I don't particularly think they are a high-quality outlet even without the use of ChatGPT to write for them -- I almost always see it used to cite some of the most dubious nationalist claims that better international media sources would never tolerate; but absent more instances I'd be willing to suspend judgment. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 20:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We're going round and round (and round) in circles about this on the talk page at List of largest empires, so it seemed a good idea to throw this open to broader commentary. I'm referring particularly to the following books and articles where Rein Taagepera was author or co-author:

1. "Size and duration of empires: systematics of size"
2. "Size and duration of empires: growth-decline curves, 3000 to 600 B.C."
3. "Size and duration of empires: growth-decline curves, 600 B.C. to 600 A.D."
4. "Expansion and contraction patterns of large polities: context for Russia"
5. "More People, Fewer States" (particularly the listing provided on p. 76)

FOARP (talk) 09:27, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He's an academic in a relevant field, published by reliable sources, the topic is rather niche but the journal articles have at least 500 odd cites between them according to Google Scholar. Does 'More People, Fewer States" have any scholarly reviews? I couldn't find any. It only has a few cites, but it's niche and only published last year. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:43, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I guess I should get my thoughts on record here and say that from my POV Taagepera is generally reliable for what should be included in a list of empires though, just as with any source, their more extraordinary listings (I'm thinking particularly of Kazakhstan) could reasonably do with confirmation in another source if challenged. FOARP (talk) 11:10, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I see no reason to assume he is not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 11:54, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes. Academically, quantifying the territorial extents of historical polities is quite a niche topic. Within that niche, Rein Taagepera is by far the most central scholar—Taagepera is the recognized authority as far as area estimates of historical polities go—and the series of articles above (sources 1–4) constitute the core scholarly work on the topic. Taagepera's work is a highly-regarded and widely-cited piece of scholarly work. It is a series of peer-reviewed scientific articles specifically about the territorial extents of historical polities which outlines its sources and methodology, and scholarship on the territorial extents of historical polities relies heavily on it, as it occupies a central position in the literature on the topic in a way that is similar to the position of McEvedy and Jones' Atlas of World Population History in the literature on historical population estimates. Taagepera's work on the subject of the territorials extents of historical polities is in other words not just mainstream, it's the go-to source for other authors working on the same topic. As a series of peer-reviewed scientific articles specifically about the territorial extents of historical polities, and the one other sources rely the most heavily on, it is the WP:BESTSOURCE on that topic. TompaDompa (talk) 18:10, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  With the context of course that the vast majority of scholars reject the entire concept of assigning fixed boundaries and measures to historical polities prefering instead to view boundaries as fluid or layered especially when it comes to empires. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, kinda-sorta but also not quite. As Taagepera says (p. 477), the color patches in historical atlases indicate a widespread belief that some territories can be assigned to some political entities, from 3000 BC on [...] There is fair agreement among the atlases on the identity and extent of the attributions, reflecting some consensus among the historians more generally. (I might also recommend reading p. 113 here). At any rate: if quantifying the territorial extents of historical polities (or attempting to, at least) is a valid endeavour, Taagepera is the WP:BESTSOURCE for it. TompaDompa (talk) 18:53, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  So the best source is a scholar who only does it as a side field? This is not Taagepera's core area of expertise after all. You're also presented an article from 1978 and one from 1997 as reflecting the current scholarly consensus which seems impossible. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:58, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  As noted, it is a very niche topic (if it weren't niche, we would expect to either see multiple competing data sets similar to Taagepera's or a single canonical/consensus one that a large number of authors have collaborated on, but we don't—the sources largely rely on Taagepera's work, occasionally making some adjustments). I don't know what the best source on the topic that predates Taagepera's work is, but it wouldn't surprise if me there wasn't really anything remotely comparable. There likewise hasn't been all that much research on the topic since, and what there is (e.g. Turchin et al. 2006 and Scheidel 2020) relies very heavily on Taagepera (and for what it's worth, none of the more recent research that I have come across outlines outlines its sources and methodology as Taagepera does—for instance, Scheidel uses Cioffi-Revilla et al. (2011) for some area estimates, e.g. in the case of the Dzungar Khanate, but the years these are attached to must come from elsewhere since Cioffi-Revilla et al. does not provide the years the area estimates apply to, only the start and end dates of the polity). I might also note that More People, Fewer States, also by Taagepera (alongside Miroslav Nemčok) and which updates some figures, was published in 2024. As for the color patches in historical atlases, that is still to the best of my knowledge how they indicate the extent of historical polities (and a quick look at a few published in more recent years seems to bear this out). TompaDompa (talk) 19:12, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Thats not just a niche topic, it appears to be a fringe one... If there are exactly zero academics who hold it as their core area of expertise then its not even really a field is it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:38, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think that follows. As an analogy: if there are exactly zero academics who hold a particular anatomical feature of one specific species as their core area of expertise, but multiple peer-reviewed articles have been published on it, it may not be a field but that doesn't make it fringe either—it would just be a very niche topic. But you could always start a WP:AfD discussion for List of largest empires on the basis that the entire concept is WP:FRINGE, if you want. TompaDompa (talk) 04:26, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That analogy doesn't work, this isn't anywhere near that specific and it ignores that the best reliable sources are in fact those scholars who hold the study of these empires within their core expertise not Taagepera. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:06, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I mean, the study of these empires is not the same thing as quantifying the territorial extents of historical polities. List of largest empires is not about the culture, economy, legal system, or what-have-you of the listed entries, it's about quantifying their territorial extents. Taagepera is the most respected authority on the question "what was the area of polity X in the year Y?". That doesn't make Taagepera the source to turn to when it comes to the question "when was the peak of empire X?" or "what were the borders of empire X?", but if you want a figure in km², Taagepera is the one you ask. You might be surprised as to how niche the question of quantifying territorial extents of historical polities is. Having spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time trying to track down such figures for various polities, I can tell you it's not particularly easy. Taagepera's work is a rare example of peer-reviewed scientific studies on the subject, and the only one I have found (that I can recall) that outlines a rigorous and methodical approach for coming up with those figures. It turns out that scholars largely do not find quantifying the territorial extents of historical polities particularly interesting—at least not when compared to other aspects of historical polities such as their cultures, wars involving them, and so on—which is reflected in the dearth of sources that actually go into any depth in coming up with such figures (a rare example of one that appears to do so—though I haven't taken a close enough look to say for sure—is Zenonas Norkus's An Unproclaimed Empire: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (2018), which deals with the territorial evolution of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, building upon Taagepera's work to provide more detailed and accurate area estimates for that particular polity). If you think that makes List of largest empires inherently WP:FRINGE in its very concept, I would again suggest that WP:AfD is the place to make that case. If not, well, there's really no getting around Taagepera's work having the standing in academia that it does: it is the most central work on the (rather niche) subject of quantifying the territorial extents of historical polities. That's not my opinion—that's how other scholars treat it. TompaDompa (talk) 06:24, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "Taagepera is the most respected authority on the question" and "that's how other scholars treat it" are literally your opinion, you have provided no source which says that in its own words. Can you also stop linking to Wikipedia:Fringe theories? Thats an entirely different use of the word fringe which doesn't apply in this context. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:30, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "Rein Taagepera has conducted the most important research on changes in the geographical area of historical empires."; "The pioneer of quantitative imperiological research, and even now the unsurpassed leader, is American-Estonian political scientist Rein Taagepera (b. 1933)." TompaDompa (talk) 06:58, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That doesn't appear to be the same question, if this was a page about modeling changes in the geographical area of historical empires Taagepera is absolutely our guy but less so here... He's generally much more interested in the rate of expansion or contraction than maximum or minimum size. His work is really not designed for that, it would be like using his electoral systems theory work on a page for list of largest elections. Perhaps you should start by making a page for quantitative imperiological research? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 08:12, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm afraid you've lost me—what is the point you are trying to make? That Taagepera is not a reliable source for the list of largest empires article? That the list of largest empires article should not exist in the first place? TompaDompa (talk) 14:15, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Taagepera is not setting out to calculate maximum size, that simply is not the point of his work and using it in that way doesn't seem right. Again it would be like sourcing vote totals from his work on elections, the number might be in there but its going to come from somewhere else. So why use this source in this context? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:21, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Calculating the maximum size of individual polities is one of the things Taagepera is interested in, even if it is not the main focus. There is some discussion of maximum sizes in the text, datapoints for various entries are labelled as the peak of that particular polity, and Table 3. in "Size and Duration of Empires: Systematics of Size" is a ranked list by maximum size. You say that the number might be in there but its going to come from somewhere else, but that's just it—the numbers in Taagepera's work don't come from elsewhere, they were calculated by Taagepera. We can't cite the source Taagepera used for the numerical value, because that source does not provide that numerical value. But if we roll with the idea that Taagepera is not an appropriate source to use for the list of largest empires article, then the same thing applies to the sources that get their data from Taagepera (e.g. Turchin et al. and Scheidel), and then there's really not much left since we are not exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to serious sources that quantify the territorial extents of historical polities. We more-or-less end up in a situation where we can't really have an article on that topic at all—but that would then be a question for WP:AfD. TompaDompa (talk) 17:09, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That isn't how RS works and I don't appreciate the way in which you're escalating this discussion by using non-sequiter bold links... Nobody besides you is talking about WP:FRINGE or WP:AfD. Those seem like red herrings getting thrown out because you don't like what you're being told on the meat of the issue. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:11, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You said the topic was "fringe". I took that too mean WP:FRINGE in the Wikipedia-specific sense. You clarified that wasn't what you meant, so I dropped it. You said Taagepera is not setting out to calculate maximum size, that simply is not the point of his work and using it in that way doesn't seem right. The point I am making is that if Taagepera is not appropriate to use for that reason, we are not really left with many sources that would be appropriate to use—hence we might not be able to have an article on the subject at all (which would be a question for WP:AfD). Anyway, the short answer to why use this source in this context? is that other scholars do—that's why the lists provided by Turchin et al. (2006) and Scheidel (2020) largely reproduce Taagepera's figures (with some adjustments) and are explicitly based on Taagepera's work. It might help us understand each other if you would explain what kind of sources you think should be used for the list of largest empires article. TompaDompa (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  And what bearing does such a point have on the question in front of us? "But we would have to delete this article" and "But that would mean we couldn't use this other source" are not arguments accepted at this venue even if we take them at face value (again, I don't think you really get how RS works, even if Taagepera isn't usable that doesn't mean that work which uses theirs or is based on theirs wouldn't be). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If you would explain what kind of sources you think should be used for the list of largest empires article, it might help us understand each other, as I said. It might reveal that one of us has misunderstood the other or the source, for instance. It might help me understand your position better in terms of what would be different about such sources. As for downstream sources: if they reproduce Taagepera's figures, we are in the situation we described earlier: the number might be in there but its going to come from somewhere else. And to reiterate: the short answer to why use this source in this context? is that other scholars do. TompaDompa (talk) 20:40, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I will not, that is not what we do at RSN and I don't think that any amount of explanation can actually move you... You've bludgeoned everyone who has tried to explain this in detail to you so I don't think you're actually listening. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:01, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I am genuinely trying to understand, but I am finding it a bit difficult to follow what you are saying at times. If I have understood you correctly, your objections are (1) this is not Taagepera's core area of expertise and (2) Taagepera is not setting out to calculate maximum size. In good faith: did I get that right, and did I miss something? TompaDompa (talk) 21:13, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think the miscommunication may be over what "this" is with each of us seeing a slightly different underlying topic, from my perspective its more or less a single point with "this" being the maximum size of empires. I think below we're more or less worked it out. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:50, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Right. I suppose this might be where we will just have to agree to disagree. I think the WP:USEBYOTHERS for lists of polities by maximum size is sufficient indication that this is an appropriate source to use in such a context. TompaDompa (talk) 21:17, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I might also add that I'm not saying either "But we would have to delete this article" or "But that would mean we couldn't use this other source", as you put it, as arguments in favour of Taagepera. I am, on the other hand, trying to establish how we should move forward with the article if Taagepera cannot be used. One important aspect there is "if we cannot use what is currently the principal source, what (kind of) sources can we use?" TompaDompa (talk) 20:53, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This is not where you would establish that, this is RSN and that is something for the article talk page. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:01, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Your second quote is from a source which goes on to examine Taagapera's work in various ways, e.g. "Having made these presumptions about prehistoric times, Taagepera continued by simply measuring the territories of historic polities as they were depicted in historic atlases and calculated the N and N values for the periods reflected in the atlases."[48] NebY (talk) 14:36, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes. Taagepera's method is clearly outlined in Taagepera's own work, which was peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal. It is linked above. TompaDompa (talk) 14:50, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  His interest, which that source discusses in detail, is not in the absolute sizes of the polities or the accuracy of the mapping. It is in the growth or decline of N_a and N_p (sorry I didn't notice those subscripts dropped out of my paste above). As the source continues, "He discovered that both N_a and N_p were in continual decline since the beginning of written history." For this purpose, the correctness of the historical atlases is irrelevant so long as has he can obtain areas that have been presented on the same basis for the same polity at more than one point in time, and not addressed. NebY (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That is one of the things Taagepera looks at, but not the only one. The correctness of the historical atlases (or more accurately, that they reflect scholarly consensus) is addressed: the color patches in historical atlases indicate a widespread belief that some territories can be assigned to some political entities, from 3000 BC on [...] There is fair agreement among the atlases on the identity and extent of the attributions, reflecting some consensus among the historians more generally. (Taagepera 1997, p. 477). TompaDompa (talk) 20:10, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Notice the nuance in Taagepera's framing which is entirely absent from your own. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:30, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Fair enough. Nevertheless, this is not something that is unaddressed by Taagepera. TompaDompa (talk) 20:45, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Nobody has argued that it was unaddressed by Taagepera and the point that it was not his interest stands. Taagepera is interested in change, not max extent and only cares about size to the extent that its a somewhat universal standard (while he clearly acknowledges is an academic fiction which he employs for its utility not its accuracy). To take his numbers and present them outside of that context as the actual size of the empires is using them in a way he never intended or endorsed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I parsed For this purpose, the correctness of the historical atlases is irrelevant so long as has he can obtain areas that have been presented on the same basis for the same polity at more than one point in time, and not addressed. as the correctness of the historical atlases is [...] not addressed. Did I get that wrong? TompaDompa (talk) 21:16, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That was mine, not Horse Eye's Back's. Thank you for pointing out that Taagepera did address it and for quoting the way he did so, which makes the point even more strongly that the absolute correctness of the historical atlases in any particular instance was irrelevant for his purposes and that he merely found them a justifiable working basis for his exploration of changes over time - not for producing a list of empires by maximum size. NebY (talk) 21:36, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  But Taagepera did produce a list of empires (and states) by maximum size? Table 3 on p. 126 of "Size and Duration of Empires: Systematics of Size". TompaDompa (talk) 21:41, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, and in that paper he describes his purpose and method: "measuring areas on historical maps" (by which of course he means modern historical atlases, not maps made in the more distant past) so that he can obtain a visualisation and determine trends. "A 10% error on all areas reported should be expected." "there will be arbitrary quantitative threshholds." "These definitions ... have been reworked until they expressed the features which are thought to be qualitatively important. Beyond that, the main demand is that the definitions be operational." He's concerned with having a self-consistent and reproducible basis for his geoholistic study of growth-decline patterns. NebY (talk) 22:22, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, the approach is self-consistent and reproducible, and it produced (be it as a by-product) a ranked list of polities by maximum size. And other scholars have been comfortable using Taagepera's figures for their own lists of polities by maximum size (be it with caveats as to the limitations inherent in estimating the sizes of empires in the first place). From a WP:USEBYOTHERS perspective, this would seem to me to be an appropriate source to use in such a context. TompaDompa (talk) 21:17, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I see your point about the limited correspondence between the calculated numerical values and the actual size of the empires. Scheidel says something similar: the boundaries of empire are notoriously hard to define [...] Overall, anything resembling precision often remains beyond our reach. These tallies are simply meant to convey a sense of orders of magnitude. TompaDompa (talk) 21:28, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• No. It is a poor source which makes basic mistakes: 1 - it claims that Brazil achieved full control of its present territory in 1900, when in reality it only conquered Acre (state) in 1903, and control of the deep Amazon was a fantasy back then. 2 - it lists the territorial peak of the Spanish Empire in 1810, when it was falling apart after Napolean installed his brother as king. 3 - it claims Britain controlled the entire territory of Australia, Canada, and India in 1850.

It is a useful source because it lists the territory of several obscure empires, but we should uses alternatives wherever possible. In fact that's what more recent scholarship does, like Scheidel (2020): Table 2.1 is based mostly on Taagepera [...] with corrections from [...] for several Inner Asian empires, and from Etemad 2007, 134-187, for modern colonial empires [...].

I find frankly inexplicable the obsession with this flawed source and the refusal to use the corrected figures. Tercer (talk) 18:47, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I would suggest that the current state of understanding of what borders meant in the pre-modern, and even into the modern in many areas, era would mean almost nothing could be a reliable source for this article? If we are doing things properly, we should remove that list and replace it with an article on what territorial control meant in contexts prior to the ubiquity of modern states.Boynamedsue (talk) 09:35, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think you do have a point, but note that the article has already been nominated for deletion 7 times, with the result being always keep. We are cursed with having an article based on low-quality sources. Tercer (talk) 16:04, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  A kept topic can be moved without abrogating the consensus to keep, there is no reason we couldn't move List of largest empires to Largest empires (it redirects there already) and expand beyond a list. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:57, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Indeed, the last substantial discussion (#6 in 2018) was closed with The result was keep. Whether this information can/should be merged to another list can be addressed through normal editing and discussion. (At first glance, there were broadly similar numbers arguing to keep and to merge, but I've not looked at the policy-based strength of the arguments.) We can ignore the seventh nomination, closed as The result was speedy keep. No valid rationale for deletion, and this appears to be related to ongoing disruption which has resulted in many blocks for sockpuppetry. NebY (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  At the very least the current name doesn't work because its not a list... Its multiple lists so even if we keep everything else the same it should be moved to Lists of largest empires Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:44, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Let's delete it, it seems that unfortunately it's the only choice we have. ~2025-34383-01 (talk) 20:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That's fine, but doesn't solve the problem of what to do with the content. Would Largest empires or Lists of largest empires still include the list of empires by area? That will always be problematic, as the area is ill-defined and comes from low-quality sources. Tercer (talk) 20:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think that as long as it contextualizes what is actually meant by those numbers we should be alright... But a much abbreviated list of only the largest ones instead of a list of effectively all empires by size. That seems to have been the intention all along from the name after all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:02, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think that would be a massive improvement over the status quo. I don't think it will bring peace, though, as the disruption is usually about the largest ones anyway. Tercer (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  As much as I love that this seems to be going somewhere this is really not the place to be having this discussion. Maybe we should adjurn to the article talk page? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:32, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure. Tercer (talk) 21:57, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Link for convenience: Talk:List of largest empires#Potential move or merge. TompaDompa (talk) 16:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know that it is not accepted as a source but what about its archives of government official sites ( example: [49]). 獅眠洞 (talk) 17:31, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The deprecation of WP:BAIDUBAIKE only applies to the open wiki part, the archival service is usable as an archive of the original link. Jumpytoo Talk 20:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

can u add this info on WP: BAIDUBAIKE. 獅眠洞 (talk) 14:07, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi 獅眠洞, this information has already been added to the description of WP:BAIDUBAIKE: "The Baidu Baike domain also includes a website archiving service (baike.baidu.com/reference), which unlike the encyclopedia articles (which are hosted under baike.baidu.com/item/), are acceptable to use as accessible links for reliable sources." — Newslinger talk 19:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can use Internet archive to find similar archives. GrandCeres (talk) 01:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GrandCeres, firstly .gov.cn does not support internet archive.org but archive.ph( in which some can't be archived) 獅眠洞 (talk) 11:52, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that~Thanks for your explanation. GrandCeres (talk) 11:58, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to revisit the question of whether the Southern Poverty Law Center is a reliable source for whether or not a group is a hate group.

I would rather not be sidetracked into a discussion of whether the SPLC is reliable on other topics. That discussion may be worth having, but this is not the place for it.

This may turn into an RfC later, but please don't jump the gun -- we need to make sure any RfC asks the right questions through prior discussion.

Related:

• Southern Poverty Law Center#Classifications and listings of hate groups
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 481#RFC: Southern Poverty Law Center
• List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups
• List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-LGBTQ hate groups

My opinion is as follows:

If the SPLC is the only source for labeling a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should not make the claim on any page, attributed or not.

If reliable sources label a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should use those sources, and should not add the SPLC as an additional source.

In my opinion, the SPLC has a strong perverse incentive to label groups they politically disagree with as "hate" groups in order to solicit donations and advance their political agenda, even when there is no evidence behind the listing.

There exists no RS on whether the SPLC is a RS on hate groups, only opinions. The reader of the following list should consider the source and reliability of the source, and pay special attention to any verifiable facts contained in an otherwise unreliable source. That being said, here are the reasons why I came to the above conclusion:

• A Demagogic Bully: The Southern Poverty Law Center demonizes respectable political opponents as "hate groups" -- and keeps its coffers bulging. --City Journal
• The church of Morris Dees: How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance. --Harpers (paywalled: using alternative link)
• King of Fearmongers. --Weekly Standard (dead link: using alternative link)
• Department of Defense Purges SPLC Information from its Training Material. --Capital Research
• Why Is the Southern Poverty Law Center Targeting Liberals? --The New York Times (paywalled:: Using alternative link)
• Pressured, the Southern Poverty Law Center Admits It Was Wrong --National Review
• Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way? --Politico
• Critics skewer SPLC hate group list --The Montgomery Adviser
• How Did Maajid Nawaz End Up on a List of 'Anti-Muslim Extremists'? --The Atlantic
• SPLC Won’t Label Antifa a Hate Group: To the SPLC, targeting conservatives and giving Antifa a pass is good for business. --Capital Research
• The Unlabelling of an 'Anti-Muslim Extremist' --The Atlantic
• Young Conservative Flagged on SPLC "Hatewatch" List. --Capital Research
• Hateful speech on hate groups. --The Mercury News
• The sad hysteria of the Southern Poverty Law Center --The Week
• The Intellectual Poverty of the Southern Poverty Law Center: Branding dissenters as haters undercuts its effectiveness. --Reason Magazine
• Southern Poverty Law Center Gets Creative to Label 'Hate Groups': Principled conservatives are lumped together with bigots. --Bloomberg (paywalled:: using alternative link)
• 'Shocked' Anti-Defamation League slaps FBI 'diss on hate crimes --Washington Examiner
• The Ivory Spires of the SPLC "Poverty Palace" --Capital Resarch Center
• The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam: A "hate group" list loved by the media is bogus. --Reason
• The Southern Poverty Business Model --Harpers
• The Hate Group That Incited the Middlebury Melee. --Real Clear Politics
• Poynter Institute's Retracted List of Fake News Sites Was Written by SPLC Podcast Producer: Media watchdogs should not outsource their fact-checking to the Southern Poverty Law Center. --Reason magazine
• Some People Love to Call Names --Philanthropy Roundtable

I would like to discuss one specific example which to me shows exactly why I believe that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not a reliable source for whether or not a group is a hate group.

Do they make any effort to check sources? Do they print a retraction or a correction when they are shown to have made an error?

Let's look at the sad case of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub.

Start with this report from the Iowa City Press Citizen:[50]

Apparently, someone with the screen name "Concerned Troll" posted "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!" on the Daily Stormer website, claiming that this "bookclub" met sometime in September 2016 at a unnamed restaurant somewhere in the Amana Colonies, Iowa. Based upon nothing more that that single post, the SPLC listed the Iowa town a "refuge of hate" and listed them as as "the home of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group".

One small problem: The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed. They never met. The restaurant was never named. The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing. Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed.

The Des Moines Register contacted the SPLC, and Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative writer for the SPLC initially told them that claims by community and Iowa County leaders that no such groups exist in the town are wrong.

Then later, after there was a storm of controversy, the SPLC silently changed the claim to say that this imaginary hate group is "statewide", and later even that claim was silently deleted.

The SPLC still to this day refuses to provide any evidence other than the internet post by "Concerned Troll" to support the original or the revised claim.

The SPLC vigorously stood by its claim for a full year[51], ignoring all calls for any actual evidence, and only reluctantly revised the page to falsely claim that the nonexistent group exists on a statewide level.

When you make a claim without a shred of evidence[52] other than a post on a neo-nazi website by an anonymous user who is an admitted troll, and then stand by your claim for well over a year without providing a shred of evidence, and then change the claim to another false claim, never publishing a retraction and never admitting that you were wrong, you no longer have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, as required to be considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If SPLC is the only source calling a group a hate group (or similar classification), and that that classification is not itself discussed in sources, then it seems to be an UNDUE issue of including the SPLC's mention, rather than trying to use questions around RS to try to justify inclusion or not.

Of course, if the SPLC's classification itself is the subject of coverage in sources though remains the only source actually calling a group a hate group, that is appropriate for discussion along the lines of the issues around the SPLC's classification. eg DUE is meet. And same when other RSes call a group a hate group, or where there at least some debate about whether a group is a hate group or note, then the SPLC classification also would be DUE. All these cases avoid trying to question SPCL's RS's nature, though obviously in all cases where used, we should have in-prose attribution and not assume wikivoice of the SPLC's classification. Masem (t) 14:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I am pretty sure that we are already attributing SPLC everywhere it is used as a reference for hate groups. Few editors get that sort of thing wrong and if they do thier edits don't survive. WP:DUE says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." You have to pass the "reliable source" hurdle before you even get to the "due weight" hurdle. We wouldn't reject a citation to Infowars because of DUE. We would reject it because of RS. And we wouldn't allow a citation to Infowars as an an additional, attributed reference even for material already covered by reliable sources. I am arguing that in the area of hate groups, we should treat the SPLC as an unreliable source, not as a reliable source that has been given undue weight. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am arguing that in the area of hate groups, we should treat the SPLC as an unreliable source, not as a reliable source that has been given undue weight. If that is your contention, then at least for my part, I find your argument in support of it wholly unconvincing. A bunch of sources defending their political allies from serious charges with emotive or unsound arguments doesn't come anywhere near to making that case. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

a bunch of sources defending their political allies […] with emotive or unsound arguments Bruh…have you read even one of the articles OP linked? Both contentions in your statement are manifestly incorrect, and several of the sources have a lot less controversy about their reliability than the SPLC. You can’t seriously believe that The Atlantic (a national mainstream publication, and leftist enough to platform some very edgy views from time to time) is going to have ulterior motives when it criticizes SPLC. When a very well-researched Politico article characterizes its actions the way that it does there, that is a serious matter. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 02:02, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing you've said or implied here is even remotely true, and there's evidence in this very discussion. Try harder, Bruh. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:18, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, we are not attributing them everywhere. The RfC for this was very confusing, which was why I attempted to challenge the closure, but was unsuccessful. The status quo is we have to attribute their opinions and everything else is ??? uncertain, due to the lack of clarity in the last RfC's closure, which everyone seems to have interpreted differently. When I proposed actually enforcing said RfC closure, people became quite irate, so... But as is onwiki, we do not actually attribute them for most of what we cite to them, except aformentioned opinion statements, and it is unclear if we have to. Personally, I do not think we have to; the incidents you are discussing are not really convincing. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:05, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the SPLC's list should be the only source used to state in wikivoice that a certain group is a 'hate group'. I think it should be discussed on a case-by-case basis whether to state a group is 'designated as a hate group by the SPLC' on sole basis of inclusion on that list, with a preference towards exclusion.

In all cases, we should have multiple sources asserting that a group is a hate group before we state it in our voice, and in general, we should have at lease some coverage of the SPLC's designation before we consider it WP:DUE for inclusion.

That being said, that list of sources above isn't the best. For example, the City Journal piece is from 2017, and it states that diversity is universally promoted as a civic virtue which is an unequivocally false statement in 2025. I would even contend that it was an unequivocally false statement in 2017, as well, given that the demonization of DEI in particular and diversity more generally by the political right in this country long predates that year, going back at least as far as the early days of the Obama administration. (It's arguable that it would be a false statement, no matter when it was made, because opposition to diversity has always existed, but I understand the CJ's statement to be in the context of mainstream American politics.)

Indeed, it looks like most of the sources you've cited are right-wing advocacy groups or right-leaning news orgs, at least two of which are 'no consensus on reliability' sources from WP:RSP.

Digging further into it... One of the few non-right-wing sources you provided, The Mercury News is merely reposting a story from WaPo written by Dana Milbank, the 'extravagant contrarian', which implies without argument that it is ridiculous for the SPLC to label the Family Research Council a hate group. Except that is an instance in which the SPLC's inclusion on the list is well-justified, covered in multiple reliable sources, and (while, perhaps, arguable), completely understandable to anyone who cares about LGBTQ issues. The FRC disseminates disinformation about LGBTQ people and issues, after all. In 1999, they claimed with a full chest that one of the primary goals of LGBTQ activists was to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order. At best, that is blatant bigotry, which is the same thing as 'hate' in this context.

While numerous criticisms of the FRC being included in the SPLC's list can be easily found, the objections raised never seem to extend beyond "this is a well-funded and powerful group, how dare you call them hateful!"

I'm not going to go into more detail about the list, because I do think some of those represent fair criticisms. But there's enough dubious sources and dubious claims within it that I think it could use a heavy-handed pruning. At the very least, providing some context about the source and nature of the critiques would be a good step.

To be clear, I stand by my opinion above. I don't think the SPLC should be our only source to establish whether a group is a hate group. I think we need either broad acceptance of the SPLC's designation in secondary sources, or multiple, independent sources asserting it.

But I would also advise you to trim down that list, and possibly to stop reading many of those outlets to get useful views on the SPLC. My opinion is based on my understanding of WP policy, and the argument presented here is far too weak to have had any impact on it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"this is a well-funded and powerful group, how dare you call them hateful" Last I checked, you can't promote hatred and persecution in a society if you don't have some kind of funding and access to the mass media which are supposed to promote your propaganda. Well-funded groups are destined to have more influence on the corporate media, regardless of who is their favorite scapegoat. Dimadick (talk) 00:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. And it's wild to me that anyone would even defend the FRC. They've been pushing the blatantly false and hateful claim that most pedophiles are members of the LGBTQ community for years and years. What is that, if not hateful? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:04, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have an opinion about the main question yet (as I haven't investigated sufficiently), but a few points:

• That there is no public evidence other than one or more pseudonymous statements on the Daily Stormer's site ≠ "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed." The former makes the latter more likely but isn't determinative.
• It would help to be able to read what the SPLC actually wrote. Is there an archived copy of it somewhere? For example, the Iowa City Press Citizen says "The Amana Colonies is no longer designated as the home of the neo-Nazi group. The Southern Poverty Law Center had previously designated the historic settlement as the home of the Daily Stormer," but it's hard for me to believe that the SPLC referred to the Amana Colonies as "the home" of the Daily Stormer rather than "a home". (Is "the home" of the website the place where the people funding the website live? where the site is hosted? why would it even make sense to focus on the home of the site rather than the locations where supporters live? ...). Yes, this is picky, but if the Iowa City Press Citizen isn't careful about this, what other elements may they have gotten wrong?
• The Iowa City Press Citizen wrote that the SPLC said "it had confirmation that a group of individuals met sometime in September 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas. A thread, originally posted on the Daily Stormer and since cached by Google, backed the claim." Google no longer makes their caches public, so there is no way to check that their cache, but if there was a thread in response to Concerned Troll's statement, and the thread mentioned a restaurant, then the public evidence wasn't limited to a single statement by one person, Concerned Troll. Also, if the SPLC did, in fact, have some independent confirmation about a meeting at a restaurant, it would be good to know more specifically what the SPLC itself said to the Iowa City Press Citizen, rather than just the latter's statement describing what the SPLC said.
• When I went to find a bit of info, I saw that you (Guy Macon), gave the same example in a thread 4 years ago. Do you have any other examples of what you consider serious problems with SPLC's reporting? FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed here. I'd take the "he said/she said" in regards to a single incident a website mentioned (that is apparently not even accessible) years ago with a huge, huge grain of salt. Lostsandwich (talk) 19:00, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So I've poked around a bit more, and Guy Macon, I question some of your information. As best I can tell, here's a timeline of (some of) the relevant Daily Stormer posts:

In August 2017, one source, The Gazette, says "A cached page of The Daily Stormer's former website - which was taken down by the Go Daddy hosting service in the wake of the deadly rally - shows members planning the meeting about one year ago." Presumably The Gazette reviewed the cached copy.

• August 31, 2016: someone with an unspecified name posts on the Daily Stormer that "I'm going to be busy on weekends for a while, but let's do an East Iowa book club too." "Reply if you'd be down. CR [Cedar Rapids], IC [Iowa City], Davenport, Waterloo, etc ... The Amana Colonies might be a sweet place to meet. There is an awesome free shooting range on Amana road plus it is a historic German community.” (The Gazette)
• September 23, 2016: another person with an unspecified name writes that they're "down for the Amana Colonies. ... I would really like for this to happen, they have great food over there, plenty of outside space to chat.” (same source)

No other info is provided about the rest of the thread; perhaps it also included a suggestion for a book club elsewhere in Iowa, given the "too." Alternatively, that person could have been proposing more than one kind of gathering (again, "too").

• September 26, 2016: Concerned Troll posts “The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!” PJ Media says "Concerned Troll did not provide specific details about the visit, but went on to suggest a subsequent meeting in Des Moines." Presumably PJ Media also saw a cached copy of the page.

The Gazette also says "The Southern Poverty Law Center - which tracks hate groups - lists Amana as one of several locations in the nation for The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi hate group. ... [T]hat appears to be due to members deciding to meet there for a so-called book club. Ryan Lenz, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that designation does not mean Amana is home to any actual neo-Nazis. ... 'We know people drive many, many miles - hundreds of miles - to sit with like-minded people.' While hate group activity increasingly has moved to cyberspace, Lenz said The Daily Stormer took the opposite approach in 2016 by calling for members and would-be members to attend 'book clubs” and meet one another. ... Once the center's researchers uncovered the cities where these meet ups were to take place, the cities were added to the map when it was updated this year. Lenz said it was impossible to know how many times the meetups took place." So it sounds like part of the problem is how SPLC and others interpret a given location being listed on the SPLC map, and whether SPLC explains this well.

Guy Macon, you said "Based upon nothing more that that single post, the SPLC listed the Iowa town a 'refuge of hate' and listed them as as 'the home of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group'." Do you have a link to what the SPLC wrote? I think we should all be able to read it in full. Clearly it wasn't just one post. You also wrote "They never met." How do you know? "The restaurant was never named." How do you know? This source says "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met says "people who promote hate are not welcome," so the local Fox channel knew the name of the restaurant; otherwise they couldn't have gotten a statement from the owner. You say "The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing." Please link to a copy of this police report. "Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed." No, it seems like they were using more than the one post. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:31, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Local CBS2/FOX28 news station said (Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director David Rettig) "Rettig says he even called the county sheriff to see if there had ever been any reports of hate groups being active and was told no. He says the sheriff then contacted authorities in Des Moines to see if anything ever showed up on their radar and again the response was no."[53] The Des Moines Register wrote "Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter also has denounced the claim a hate group exists, stating there is no such neo-Nazi group in the county and called the claims 'irresponsible at best'"[54] Compared this we have exactly Zero sources other that the SPLC claiming that the group exists and the SPLC specificly listing one particular anon post on a Nazi discussion group as the reason they think it exists. Yes, we can speculate that other anonymous posts from Nazis (or one Nazi with multiple accounts) may have chimed in, but the SPLC, while defending their listing again and again for over a year, did not quote any other anonymous Nazis. There is no police report because there was nothing to report. There was nothing to report because nothing happened. Any further attempts to convince me that a group of individuals calling themselves the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub met sometime in 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas should be accompanied by a source other than the SPLC that makes that claim, or at the very least a source where the SPLC provides a shred of evidence other than anonymous posts on a Nazi message board. If the attempt to convince me lacks such sources, I will continue to ignore them. The belief that the group exists is, in my opinion, a matter of faith and not evidence. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why would local law enforcement know or care if a bunch of people held a book club? Are book clubs illegal?

They did not call themselves that as a group, it was the Daily Stormer. At no point did the SPLC claim that the "First Iowa Stormer Bookclub" was a group distinct from the Stormer, so we aren't arguing about that, and I don't know why you keep bringing it up. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:39, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"the SPLC specificly listing one particular anon post on a Nazi discussion group as the reason they think it exists. ... the SPLC, while defending their listing again and again for over a year, did not quote any other anonymous Nazis." Please provide a source for that. All I found on the SPLC website is that it was a local group identified as "Neo-Nazi, The Daily Stormer, Amana, Iowa," with nothing about the source of the information. As for "County Sheriff Rob Rotter also has denounced the claim a hate group exists, stating there is no such neo-Nazi group in the county," as best I can tell, a lot of this boils down to a misunderstanding of what an ID on the hate map means, even though I quoted it above. Here it is again:

Ryan Lenz, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that designation does not mean Amana is home to any actual neo-Nazis. ... 'We know people drive many, many miles - hundreds of miles - to sit with like-minded people.' While hate group activity increasingly has moved to cyberspace, Lenz said The Daily Stormer took the opposite approach in 2016 by calling for members and would-be members to attend 'book clubs” and meet one another. ... Once the center's researchers uncovered the cities where these meet ups were to take place, the cities were added to the map when it was updated this year. (emphasis added)

So the SPLC wasn't claiming that there are any neo-Nazis living in Amana; all they were saying is that the Daily Stormer encouraged adherents to meet in person, and there was at least one meeting in Amana, and it may be that none of the people who attended lived in the county.

Re: "we have exactly Zero sources other that the SPLC claiming that the group exists," you clearly have the Daily Stormer site claiming that it existed at least to meet once, and perhaps to meet more than once (since PJ Media reported that Concerned Troll "went on to suggest a subsequent meeting in Des Moines"). As I also noted above, the local Fox station said "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met says 'people who promote hate are not welcome,' so they knew the name of the restaurant and claimed that the group met there. I'm not sure why you say "Any further attempts to convince me that a group of individuals calling themselves the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub met sometime in 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas should be accompanied by a source other than the SPLC that makes that claim," when I already provided you with the Fox source.

"There was nothing to report because nothing happened." So why did the local Fox station say that the group met? And why would you think that there would be anything to report about some people meeting / hanging out at a restaurant? The proclaimed intent of the book clubs was just to have people who posted to the Daily Stormer meet others who lived in the same general vicinity as them. FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:16, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, as best I can tell, the sheriff did not investigate until a year later and no one in Amana was aware of the listing until the Unite the Right rally a year later, which is why all of the reporting is from August 2017, not the fall of 2016. Not sure why you'd expect an investigation a year later to turn anything up. BTW, in my experience, police do, in fact, write up a report even if they don't find anything, to record what was investigated and what investigative steps they took (e.g., who they questioned). FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:06, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i dont see much here beyond grumblings from conservative groups that a civil rights group finds that many folks with questionable beliefs belong to such groups. wp:attribute exists for this purpose and Wp:publicfigure exists to state that we need multiple sources for any negative statement anyways. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 15:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By dint of the fact that we always attribute SPLC (or at least, should do so, which is reflected in the RSP entry), we are clearly treating it as opinion and not fact (by NPOV's Avoid stating facts as opinions, we should not make such attributions if we consider SPLC's opinions fact). The SPLC is a reliable source for their own opinion, and this can only be an issue with the amount of prominence we ought to give it. The level of reliability issues needed to argue a group is no longer reliable for their own opinion is far beyond people disagreeing in their own opinion pieces. Alpha3031 (t • c) 16:04, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In every article I have seen, the SPLC's designation is attributed inline. For example, "According to SPLC, group x is a hate group." Since whether or not a group is a hate group is reported as a matter of opinion not fact, this is the incorrect noticeboard. It should be NPOVN.

In fact the SPLC is a reliable source of information about right-wing extremist groups. Unfortunately for them, a large number of right-wing columnists subscribe to at least one of the views they consider hate, which generates a lot of opposition in the right-wing echo chamber.

Describing Christina Hoff Sommers as "giving a "mainstream and respectable face" to groups peddling "male supremacy"" (as stated in the Reason article cited above) probably agrees with the conclusions of most subject experts. Of course, it offends some conservatives. But no one is suggested it be reported as a fact without inline citation. TFD (talk) 01:03, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SPLC's reliability really should be deprecated, but that can be reserved for another discussion, for the purposes of this discussion, I'd say that both of the above opinion items are in fact valid and should be implemented. Thanks @Guy Macon Iljhgtn (talk) 20:41, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Guy Macon, it looks like you're getting a lot of pushback, and I don't want to pile on but... I don't see that your opinion if implemented would be an improvement on our existing consensus.

You think that If the SPLC is the only source for labeling a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should not make the claim on any page, attributed or not. Currently, WP:SPLC says that "The organization's views, especially when labeling hate groups, should be attributed per WP:RSOPINION. Take care to ensure that content from the SPLC constitutes due weight in the article and conforms to the biographies of living persons policy."

If SPLC were the only source saying a group is a hate group, and no one else covered it, I would agree with you (and I think our existing consensus would also be to omit the classification). If the SPLC were the only source labeling a group as a hate group, and that designation received significant secondary coverage, I would interpret your opinion as saying we should omit the attributed label, whereas the existing consensus would be to include. I think that your way would undermine WP:NPOV - it's not for us to decide that secondary sources are highlighting the "wrong" opinions, even if SPLC's designations are suspect.

Moreover, I think WP:SPLC provides plenty of caution in our use of SPLC as a source for its opinion content (the hate designations), even as it holds them generally reliable for factual information. The question of SPLC's general reliability is separate and not directly addressed by your opinions in the first post - I think that if you're correct about the whole Nazi book club thing, that's concerning and is reason to look into their editorial processes, but given the RfC was recent, I wouldn't want to reopen the issue unless more of a pattern can be established. Samuelshraga (talk) 09:36, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They're not correct on the nazi book club thing. See @PARAKANYAA's comments. TarnishedPath^talk 09:59, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would that be the comment that claims that anonymous Nazis (or maybe one Nazi with multiple accounts) posting on a Daily Stormer website are acceptable as primary sources? Do you have a single thread of actual evidence that the book club ever met in Amana? Any sources at all that can't be traced back to the post by "Concerned Troll"? The SPLC has steadfastly refused to even mention any other source despite numorous press enquiries. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That source has been provided to you multiple times already: "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met..."[55]. At this point you a dangerously close to IDHT. Thryduulf (talk) 15:30, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote if you're correct about the whole Nazi book club thing in a deliberately conditional voice ;) Samuelshraga (talk) 13:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be covered by WP:ATT. To be called a hate group by SPLC is not nothing, so if a third party source mentions that SPLC calls them a hate group, it probably merits mention. However, “SPLC calls them a hate group, source, SPLC calling them a hate group” is inappropriate for the usual reasons. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:44, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you know of articles with "defamatory material reposted without attribution," please name them, so we can fix that right now. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:34, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That article is more or less just complaining that the SPLC lists groups that are anti-gay marriage as "hate groups". I don't find that to be a compelling argument against it, at least from the perspective that Wikipedia usually comes from. It's not any more garbage than the media, or academia is, which in my experiences in this topic area are just as often wrong as the SPLC is. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:13, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Gets sued a lot" is really not a meaningful metric. Lostsandwich (talk) 05:19, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that in its 54 years the SPLC has retracted descriptions of people or groups after criticisms or legal threats a grand total of THREE times, two of which relate to a designation as “extremist” and none to a designation as a “hate group”. I don’t think there’s a single case against them that has come to court and resulted in them losing. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:58, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a WP:DUE question, not a WP:RS question, since you acknowledge that when it's the only source it's generally used for attributed opinion. Beyond that, sources you cite are unconvincing - these are largely opinion or heavily WP:BIASED sources (and most of them are accusing it of bias; bias doesn't make a source unreliable. It just requires attribution, which we currently use.) These sources establishe that the SPLC is controversial, not that it is unreliable; and they establish that what it says attracts massive amounts of attention, which lends it weight. Indeed, many of these are worded from a clear perspective of, essentially, "everyone trusts the SPLC and treats it seriously, but they shouldn't", ie. they acknowledge that they are taking a minority position. And beyond that, the argument that we shouldn't describe the SPLC's opinions even when heavily covered by high-quality secondary sources is absurd - nothing gets that level of prohibition. Literal lies spouted by Lucifer himself could be included in our articles if given sufficient high-quality secondary coverage; we'd want to cover it the way the secondary sourcing does and hope that they'd point out any problems, but in that case it is the secondary source's reputation that matters. And the fact is that, as you are probably aware, secondary sources quite frequently defer to the SPLC - which is doubtless why you made this suggestion, but, again, "fixing" that isn't how we work! "These people are so bad that even when secondary sources quote them we should ignore it because they were obviously wrong to do so" is WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. I don't think you've even convincingly made the argument that the SPLC is unreliable, but certainly we have to cover it when it is given significant weight by secondary sources. If anything, the fact that a significant minority dislikes or distrusts the SPLC is an additional reason to make it clear when secondary sources are relying on them - the implication of your request here would be that if an academic paper says "XYZ is a hate group, according to the SPLC", we would... cite that paper without mentioning that it attributes it to the SPLC? That's worse, you do see how that's worse, right? --Aquillion (talk) 21:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a WP:DUE question, not a WP:RS question, since you acknowledge that when it's the only source it's generally used for attributed opinion. That was my thought when I first responded, as well, but Guy clarified in this comment that he's arguing that the SPLC is unreliable. Apparently, Guy finds those heavily biased right-wing opinion articles much more convincing than the rest of us do. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:26, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many were not "heavily biased right-wing opinion articles". It's easy to be correct when you can just ignore every dissenting comment. Buffs (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm impressed by your audacity in not putting the word 'many' in scare quotes there. I sure as shit would have.

There's 2 sources, out of 23, (less than 9%) which are reliable and not known for a strong right-wing bias. And those two sources are the least damning of all of them. Try again. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:57, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your language and assumption of bad faith is not conducive to a collegial discussion. Buffs (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no assumption of bad faith in my response. I merely opined my surprise that you would use such a patently untrue word as 'many' without enclosing it in scare quotes, then laid out why. The why here was germane, of course, as it forms a coherent and sound rebuttal to your eminently false claim.

As for my language... I've had enough collegial discussions peppered with 'shits', 'fucks', 'asses', 'bitches', 'bastards', 'cocks', 'cunts' and 'tits' and even the occasional 'syphilitic shit-packing ass-weasel' to know with absolute certainty that you're just plain wrong.

You know what's not very conducive to collegial discussions? Bullshit accusations meant to sidestep valid criticism of arguments. That shit will derail a discussion like little else. (Notice how we're no longer discussing the number of left-wing sources in Guy's list, if you need proof.) Oh, and pearl-clutching about curse words. That tends to be pretty toxic to a good chat, too. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:41, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These sources are overwhelmingly right wing publications, followed by those few that aren't but which are almost a decade old, and lastly the NYT piece which is an op-ed Snokalok (talk) 21:33, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what everyone else, who posted before me, is saying. Your best bet for restricting the use of SPLC is probably asking whether their opinion is undue when their opinion isn't covered in other secondary sources. Or that if their assessement isn't covered in other sources, it should not be in the lead. Rolluik (talk) 22:11, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Read my everyone else as most people. Some people's opinions, I hadn't read yet because they posted at nearly the same time. Rolluik (talk) 22:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with other commenters - only use with attribution, and not necessarily in the lead. However, this does raise the question of whether it should be down graded at WP:RSP - perhaps to a yellow “additional considerations”. Blueboar (talk) 22:23, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think it raises that question. We have discussed this numerous times and no new evidence calling for additional considerations has been presented in this thread. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This suggestion strikes me as pointless. If the SPLC is the sole source describing a group as a hate group, that description is going to be attributed anyway. If there's multiple source also describing a group as a hate group alongside the SPLC, why omit it them? Cortador (talk) 22:24, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1 BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:00, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hate group is fundamentally an opinion statement so per MOS:LABEL we should never say it in wikivoice anyway. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And, as someone who mostly edits about the 'far-right', my opinion on the SPLC itself and their factual reporting (not their opinions), I would say they are generally reliable, as our protracted RFC earlier this year concluded and my own experience researching and using them as a source. I have rarely taken issue with their factual reporting, far less than with news media, for example. As shown by FactOrOpinion the specific case at issue is overblown and I don't actually see any issue with how they reported it. The other incidents pointed out here are not really convincing and are a mix of opinion pieces and people subject to the pieces complaining about their opinions. They are just extremely opinionated, but so is all scholarship on this topic (and academic on "hate groups" post-NA is almost entirely just recycling the SPLC anyway), but when it comes to factual matters they are generally excellent. In that regard, they are not really any worse than academia. Relative to all other anti-hate watchdog groups they are by far the most reputable and reliable in terms of facts. But whether it's from the SPLC or anyone else "hate group" is like "terrorist" in that it is a contentious label and basically inherently opinion so per MOS:LABEL should never be said in wikivoice, e.g. we do not call Hitler evil in wikivoice for the same. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see this discussion really changing how the source is used but my feeling is they should be treated like other advocacy organizations in that we shouldn't give weight to anything they report unless independent RSs do it first. The SPLC, in my view, shouldn't be the only source for a claim of any type. In this regard we would treat it like any number of generally respected advocacy groups/think tanks. As mentioned above, we recently had a long RfC on the SPLC so I don't see the status changing here. Springee (talk) 00:26, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We do use advocacy orgs for factual claims all the time, and there is no policy reason not to. Especially on any topic related to white supremacists/the far right... check pretty much any page for one, and it will be a main source. I don't see any particular reason to treat them differently than other RS, as bias is not related to reliability, and academia is just as if not more biased against white supremacy than the SPLC. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:56, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure wp should be going into whether a group is a "hate group" or not. I think it's more encyclopedic to describe the kind of hate, for example, anti-trans, anti-lgbt, white nationalist, ethnic supremacist, etc. (t · c) buidhe 02:45, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OP’s proposal has no policy basis. No new evidence has been presented to change our previous consensus reached in multiple discussions. Nothing in this thread indicates use of this source makes our articles problematic in any way. This is not a generative discussion. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:06, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

agreed, wasn't there a very recent well-attended RFC on this? Andre🚐 01:27, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The RfC was six months ago and the consensus was 23 to 17 - (57.5% to 42.5%). --Guy Macon (talk) 01:51, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Six months ago is a "very recent" RFC. And 40 participants is well-attended. Loki (talk) 02:08, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say it isn't. I simply answered the question asked. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:17, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Determining consensus is not a mere WP:HEADCOUNT. TarnishedPath^talk 06:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

True, but it IS a measure of lack of unity on the conclusion. Buffs (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The conclusion was challanged at WP:AN and recieved endrosement. TarnishedPath^talk 22:19, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The closure received endorsement, not the conclusion. There is a difference. Buffs (talk) 00:06, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The closure states the conclusion. Is is the closure that is quoted at places like WP:RSP. Therefore, if the closure was endorsed, so was the conclusion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:08, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To the contrary. People explicitly endorsed the closure even if they didn't endorse the conclusion. Buffs (talk) 01:10, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The question of the reliablity of SPLC in relation to hategroups was explicity addressed in the RFC at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_481#RFC:_Southern_Poverty_Law_Center which was endorsed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive372#Review_of_SPLC_closure. TarnishedPath^talk 02:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Their lists are entirely subjective and opinionated, as PARAKANYAA stated. Who and what is hateful is an opinion. They have also been known to act like a shakedown organization and thrive on churning and farming hate groups to maintain their existence, which has greatly deviated from the original purpose. Designations like this should probably not even be allowed on here, just like the use of WP:TERRORIST is restricted. ← Metallurgist (talk) 06:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Whether they have deviated from their original purpose is irrelevent. TarnishedPath^talk 06:47, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a comment on the usage of their designations, which I generally do not care for, but since I find your comment to have some wider implications for their accuracy: when it comes to their factual content they do have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy", and in my experience looking at them as a source they are good. There are no non-opinionated sources on "hate groups" (even academia, which is just as opinionated) or whatever else such groups that tend to be called hate groups are called. If we were to prohibit sources on this topic for being opinionated we would not have any; whether the factual material is accurate is what matters.

And to be fair, in their treatment of 'hate groups', they really have not changed at all from how they were in the past (many of these specific complaints are decades old). PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:22, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it posssible that you are confusing the SPLC with the ADL when saying that the purpose and methodology have changed? ~2025-32692-02 (talk) 09:36, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As others have said, more of an Undue issue. Yes they are fine as long as we attribute it. Slatersteven (talk) 14:31, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guy Macon left a message on my talk page inviting me to this discussion, and it looks like they also invited about 24 others too, with no explicit mention of selection criteria. I've read the discussion on this page and a selection of the articles linked to, and like most others who have commented previously I am not persuaded that any change to the status quo is required. Thryduulf (talk) 14:49, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• If you look at the source of the invitation you will find "Sent to everyone who commented on the RfC" (skipping, of course, anyone who has already commented here). Please note that this means that the majority of those notified disagreed with me last time and are expected to disagree with me again. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Guy, I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds your decision to ping all of us here reasonably neutral enough in a fashion that does not run afoul of WP:CANVAS, even if your objective in doing so seems likely to have been trying to blow this discussion up to a scale where you might have a chance at a second bite at the apple. But bluntly, the effort to do that and the timing you have chosen raise some serious concerns in themselves. Given the massive scale of that previous discussion, the substantial consensus that resulted, and the fact that there was a robust closure review affirming the result, this feels far too soon to re-litigate the outcome of that discussion yet again. And you are doing so not in light of new information but by presenting sources that were largely already available during the previous discussions, and by leveraging one niche, cherry-picked case study of your own design. Which, as others have noted, has a non-trivial amount of speculation in it--and indeed, arguably a fair bit of spin/selective presentation of the facts, intentional or otherwise.

  In short, this dispute has already consumed gargantuan amounts of volunteer time, only to result in a fairly robust consensus. And yet, four months and a few weeks after the end of the closure review, you've revived the discussion basically along the same exact line of inquiry. Now I'll go ahead and WP:AGF that your reasons for pinging such a large group back here to participate again was an attempt to be seen as approaching this situation in a pro forma, neutral fashion. But I also doubt you did so without realizing that the only way the previous consensus would be deemed to be overturned would be if this discussion reached a roughly comparable scale of engagement, and that you had nothing to lose from the effort at making this as big a thing as possible again and hoping that discussion shook out in another direction this time. Frankly, given the full context here, I feel that your overall approach here is very arguably WP:DISRUPTIVE and I'm a little surprised you haven't faced more pushback for it, all things considered. And I say that as someone who came to the RfC without previous involvement in the dispute, and whose mind remains open to re-assessing in the future.

  So while I am not advocating for any action as a result of this effort to revive the discussion, if this thread continues to demonstrate anything less than a massive landslide shift in community perspective (which shift seems highly unlikely) I would strongly advise you to WP:DROPTHESTICK on this sooner rather than later. Because it's not hard to imagine the possibility of a TBAN if you continue to try to re-open this black hole of a dispute on the basis of idiosyncratic arguments you appear to have been making for several years now. Consensus can change, and this source does intersect with some controversial topics, but even considering those circumstances, the community cannot keep dropping such a volume of volunteer effort into this matter simply because you are not prepared to admit that you lost the argument for the immediate future. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 01:16, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  +1 ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:46, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I massively disagree with this assessment. This is not canvassing nor disruptive. Buffs (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It's definitely canvassing. It's probably isn't inappropriate canvassing, and doesn't seem to have been otherwise disruptive. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  By definition, Canvassing is inappropriate. WP:CANVAS: "Canvassing is notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way, and is considered inappropriate"

  In contrast, notifications of this manner are appropriate. Again, from WP:CANVASS: "In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus."

  You're entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own definitions. Buffs (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Weird how you read Snow's opinion that Guy's behavior does not run afoul of WP:CANVAS, and took that as an accusation of canvassing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:49, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was canvassed to comment. Of course this requires attribution when mentioned, of course if they are the only organization that characterizes some group as a hate group it is likely to be undue weight, but certainly they are a reliable source. Any organization tracking hate groups is occasionally going to be an outlier in some of their characterizations: each have their own criteria, plus it's not a science. - Jmabel | Talk 15:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't call it canvassing—audience notified appears non-partisan. That said, I feel like this discussion can be closed tomorrow if there's no steam for changing the consensus. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:12, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't see any problem as long as it's attributed. As mentioned above, the SPLC has existed for over 50 years and the number of times it's been genuinely pulled up on its definitions is comparatively tiny. Also, I'd look again at whether that long list of sources above is useful here; even at a brief glance, some are obviously unreliable (Capital Research, City Journal), whilst the Washington Examiner/Weekly Standard is yellow-flagged for partisanship at RSP and some of the others are op-eds. Even the Harpers article starts "(SPLC is ...) the do-gooder group that does very little good". There's painfully little from reliable and non-partisan sources there. Black Kite (talk) 16:00, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They're generally reliable on the subject of hate groups, though as an advocacy organization their analysis should (usually*) be attributed. (*If a wide number and variety of sources agree that an organication is a hate group, I believe the responsible editorial decision is to say that in wikivoice. That is more of a DUE issue than RS, however.) I don't think the critical sources above move the needle much, if at all. Woodroar (talk) 16:17, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• How can you look at the way they determined that the Amana Colonies was the headquarters for a hate group and conclude that they are reliable on the subject of hate groups? They based this on an anonymous post on a Nazi discussion list and have refused to respond to multiple requests from the Amana Colonies and the Des Moines Register asking them for a shred of evidence other than the Nazi discussion list that their claim was true. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  See FactOrOpinion's very lengthy explanation above.

  Every material on neo-Nazis will ultimately be based on primary sources from neo-Nazis. I don't know what other sources you would expect. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:39, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Seriously? You are defending using an anonymous post on a Nazi message board as a source? It isn't even a primary source. No actual Nazi group has ever claimed that the Stormer Book Club exists. Just the anonymous post. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Every source about The Daily Stormer, a pseudonymous neo-Nazi message board, is ultimately using The Daily Stormer as a source for its own opinions and operations. The Stormer was not a "group" in that sense so yeah obviously they wouldn't say that. Where else do you expect them to get information on its content? PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:53, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Seriously. Your description had very clear holes in it (which I described), and you chose not to provide the evidence I asked for. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:25, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As an advocacy organization, I'm of the opinion that all of their content from their own sites should be considered self-published. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:29, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think SLPC is valid for fact checking OR notability. They cover a lot of tiny non-notable groups; that is part of their purpose, so we shouldn't consider those groups notable just because SLPC has an article on them. When it comes to fact checking, this is an example; "Walsh is a self-described “theocratic fascist”". [56] They provide a link to his twitter. He was interviewed back in 2016 about it, and said someone messaged him and told him he was one, so he put it on his twitter as a joke, it's not a self-description of who he is. It is 2025 and they still have it listed as a straight up, factual statement. So, what kind of fact checking did they do? They are a political group, and politicians say this kind of thing about opponents all the time. We can't stop that. But, political talking points like this are always contentious, and should be treated as such. It's not like they are contacting the "hate groups" and asking them for comment - that's not their purpose. But if they aren't useful for Notability or for being reliable... what's the point of using them at all? Denaar (talk) 16:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

People don't say things like "theocratic fascist" about themselves all the time. He still has it in his Twitter description (https://x.com/MattWalshBlog), so either he recognizes that it's accurate (even though he says it's a joke) or he recognizes that people take it seriously and is choosing to leave it up anyway. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:52, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think in the link you provided, it is beyond obvious that the person there is mentioning that label as a joke. Whether it is funny or not is up to the reader. Iljhgtn (talk) 20:54, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That you, personally, believe it to be a joke does not mean that others believe it to be a joke. If it's a joke, the fact that he's left it there despite knowing that some people are interpreting it as a serious self-description tells us that he doesn't care whether people misinterpret it. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:16, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can't seriously believe that he wants people who eat ranch dressing to be burned at the stake, along with anyone who eats Mayo, Ricotta, or Cream Cheese. That's what he says he'll do when it becomes a theocratic fascist. [57] Denaar (talk) 03:40, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That someone has said something is a joke and has, like everyone alive on this planet, made jokes, does not mean they are being honest. The "theocratic fascist" claim appears in a number of academic books, so take up the issue with Routledge, I suppose [58] [59], or academics [60] PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:45, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can't seriously believe that being a theocratic fascist implies anything at all about eating ranch dressing, mayo, ricotta, or cream cheese. As I said: If it's a joke, the fact that he's left it there despite knowing that some people are interpreting it as a serious self-description tells us that he doesn't care whether people misinterpret it. FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:20, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He literally describes himself as a theocratic fascist. He is therefore indeed a self-described theocratic fascist. Our article on Matt Walsh says this without citing SPLC, and cites his response, and it seems it’s his response for which we are unable to find a solid source. His commentary is sometimes described by media outlets as trolling or provocation.^[1][2][3][4] He labels himself a "theocratic fascist" in his Twitter biography,^[5][6] which he said was an ironic response to an opponent using the label as an insult.^{[7][better source needed]} In other words, other RSs suggest SPLC would indeed be factual if we cited them. Further, SPLC link to their primary source so you were able to verify yourself that they were telling the truth. Our own quote from him doesn’t in fact say it was a joke, but confirms it was his self-description: It does say in my Twitter bio that I'm a theocratic fascist, well because a few months ago someone sent me a message, trying to insult me, and the message said: 'hey, y'know, you should put theocratic fascist in your Twitter bio because that's what you are.' In fact, if we did actually cite SPLC here instead of him, we’d be able to note that he said it was a joke; they say: Walsh sometimes suggests his most extreme comments are satirical or in jest, as when he explained why he describes himself as a theocratic fascist. In other words, SPLC would be a better fact checking source than BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:31, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can't WP:common sense or even WP:IAR be used to know that it's clearly meant to be at least partially ironic? Wikieditor662 (talk) 05:42, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am with User:MjolnirPants on reasons and argumentation behind this case. To start (and maybe even finish) with sources listed as a basis for questioning SPLC credibility, they are all biased, most are hardly well known and/or mainstream, and apart from Politico, most are right wing polemical outlets, including liberal mainstream but deeply flawed and, from liberal point of view, harshly criticized Atlantic. I would additionally point to arguments offered by User:Jmabel, with whome I absolutely agree, especially on a matter of criteria and the fact that tracking hate (groups) is not based on empirical evidences so it's not a science, which means there is always risk to digress, for the margin of error. On the matter of usage, concerning atribution, I would repeat User:Woodroar arguments in a post just above. Bottom line, I find SPLC reliable source that should be used with reason and thoughtfully in every individual referencing.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 17:23, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Please explain how Maajid Nawaz and the Amana Colonies are "right wing polemical outlets". --Guy Macon (talk) 17:38, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Those aren't sources you listed. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Are you denying that the SPLC listed Maajid Nawaz and the Amana Colonies were placed on the SPLC hate list? Or that they complained about it? Both claims are well sourced. You can't just dismiss them by saying "everyone complaining is a right wing outlet." Plus, there is the assumption in your argument that it is perfectly OK to label something as a hate group if it is right wing -- no actual evidence required. If I made an article titled List of organizations designated by Infowars as commies, would you argue that the only people complaining are left wing groups targeted by Alex Jones? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:01, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You were responding to "To start (and maybe even finish) with sources listed as a basis for questioning SPLC credibility, they are all biased". Neither of those two things are listed as sources.

  And no, the Amana Colonies were never listed on the hate list as a hate group. Nawaz was never designated as a hate group either.

  Well, if you're taking issue with the entity at issue in the case you bring up (the Daily Stormer), that openly denies the Holocaust, being deemed a hate group, then I don't think there's anything that would satisfy you here.

  Infowars does not have an official "designation" of anything, unlike the SPLC. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:07, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The Daily Stormer exists. The The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub in Amana Colonies Iowa does not. It is a fabrication of the SPLC. They have no source other than an anonymous post on the Daily Stormer message board (not the Daily Stormer itself, which never claimed that the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub exists, just someone posting a message.) That would be like us grabbing the next message from a new IP editor we see on Wikipedia and using that as evidence that whatever they claim must be true. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:34, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That isn't what they said, at all. According to the sources that you linked, at no point did they claim that there was a discrete group called the "First Iowa Stormer Bookclub" but that followers of The Daily Stormer were located in Iowa. That is the locus of the whole dispute, it was the entry of The Daily Stormer, that is what you are challenging. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I too would concur that SPLC's assessments are overblown and exaggerated for financial gain (at best) or political gain (at worst). That doesn't mean they are wrong on everything or even a majority of their assessments, but the inclusion of some of these groups as "hate groups" is absurd and clearly politically motivated. Such opinions by ANY advocacy organization (left, right, or center) should be treated with a huge grain of salt and with attribution (at a minimum). I concur with Guy Macon's proposal. Buffs (talk) 17:31, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd like to see a list of these groups that are listed by the SPLC as "hate groups" but which apparently obviously aren't. It would be enlightening to this discussion. Black Kite (talk) 20:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The Family Research Council is probably most prominent. Others include Moms for Liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family, Federation for American Immigration Reform, Quilliam, Center for Immigration Studies, The Ruth Institute, Moms for America, Liberty Counsel, Center for Security Policy, Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM), and many others...individuals too: Maajid Nawaz and Ben Carson are probably the most notable, but there are others like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, David Horowitz, Ryan Mauro, Walid Shoebat, and John Guandolo. Buffs (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't see how it is objectionable to describe the Family Research Council, an organization that uses "anti-gay pseudoscience" to falsely conflate homosexuality and pedophilia' as a hate group.

  Or the Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform, which was founded by a white nationalist who advocates for ethnic cleansing and published the Camp of the Saints?

  If these are your examples of the most problematic ones I don't think that looks bad for the SPLC. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:22, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Or the Alliance Defending Freedom which campaigns to criminalise being gay and considers homosexuality a threat to western society. Or the Ruth Institute, whose speakers have compared gay marriage to Nazism, blamed homosexuality for the rise of Nazism, and directly link it to paedophilia. It seems reasonable for the SPLC to say that these groups have "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics." (The value to the reader is knowing that these are not regular research or expert organisations, despite how some of them may present themselves.) I'm struggling with these as examples of unreliability. Quilliam should not be on the list, as the SPLC withdrew that designation several years ago. OsFish (talk) 05:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "The SPLC withdrew that designation several years ago" That's an interesting characterization. the Southern Poverty Law Center listed Quilliam International and Maajid Nawaz in its SPLC Field Guide to Antimuslim Extremists. Nawaz objected, and for two years the SPLC refused to remove the entry. Then Nawaz filed a defamation lawsuit. The SPLC ended up paying out a $3.375 million settlement, admitting that it was wrong, and removing Nawaz and his organization from the list. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Did you know this before you put Quilliam in your list?OsFish (talk) 06:29, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Why does it matter? Buffs (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Wow. I guessed that the FRC, who are an obvious hate group, would be mentioned. I didn't expect a number of other quite obvious ones to be listed as exceptions as well though! Black Kite (talk) 11:47, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Can you show where SPLC labeled Ali (or indeed any of these other individuals) a “hate group”? Pretty sure they didn’t. Or are you answering a question other than the one you were asked? BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:39, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Obviously, individuals aren't "groups". I very clearly said that they were individuals that the SPLC called out. Article is still live [61] Buffs (talk) 01:17, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]