User talk:JzG/Archive 179
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Removal of "blacklisted" sources from articles on Russian weaponry
First of all, as far as I recall from the last time I checked the list, RT and "bmpd" were not there, so removal of links to their articles is probably a mistake. Second of all, I must warn you that massive purging of all the blacklisted sources in articles on Russian weaponry would just leave these articles unsourced, and especially in terms of technical details, since western sources on this are either severely outdated or do not exist. And overall I think it is a huge mistake on the side of Wikipedia administation to allow "propaganda" rationale to influence the content of strictly technical topics. If you would take your time and carefully check every single passage you've removed a source from, you'd find out they do not carry any ideological constituent. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 20:33, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, RT is a Russian propaganda site, and is unreliable. It's also usually unnecessary. BMPD is a LiveJournal blog whose About page goes to some lengths to explain that it is not an authority and that the content is personal opinion. Guy (help!) 20:39, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- RT is not listed in the so-called "blacklist", that's the important part. When it comes to BMPD, it is, indeed, a private blog, however it is widely referrenced to in the OSINT community and removing it from Wikipedia is just a mistake, since, when it comes to Russian weaponry, a lot of the times this blog is irreplaceable as a source. I understand it must be done in terms of strict following of the guidelines, but in the end this policy would just lead to a large-scale depletion of Wikipedia content on the topic. I think it would be much wiser in this case to leave evaluation of this source to the reader. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, WP:RSN please, that's the correct venue for this. Guy (help!) 20:53, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- By the way, "topwar" (mentioned in the link you've provided) is another example of this: while some of their articles are, indeed, filled with propagandistic rhetoric, the others may prove invaluable as a source of technical details or factology on a variety of military topics. So, it's a very strange situation you're putting us as editors in. I personally do not care about RT, but purging of "bmpd" (which is pretty neutral) and "topwar" from articles on Russian military is actually a catastrophe. I've no idea how and who is going to fill these insanely huge source holes now. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 21:06, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, topwar is blacklisted and has been for some time. And in fact virtually all areas related to weapons are plagued with sources that small groups of interested editors have decided are reliable because they need them to provide intricate levels of detail. This happens much less with railway articles (which I also follow). It's unclear why the blogs are so much more prevalent with weapons. Guy (help!) 21:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I know, that's part of the reason why I am warning about a likely content depletion - the source is just too big and too widely used. When it comes to blogs, I think it's just about the very topic being too niche for the big outlets to cover in desired detail and frequency. Most of the time they would rather provide a simple informational contour and go in detail only when something really resonant happens, so there's simply not enough "credible" sources for an average Wikipedia military article. Let alone an article on some Russian system, since this is even more niche. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, that may indicate that we are including excessive detail. Guy (help!) 21:47, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- If you mean that Wikipedia should be closer to big media outlets in terms of the density of information it provides the reader with, I would disagree, since it's not clear then why it's called "Encyclopedia" and why a reader should use this website over some online magazines. Moreover, some systems just demand high level of detail in their description, since without it it would be impossible to create within the article a full picture of how they work. A good example of this is S-300: many versions, lots of missile types, complex regiment composition with all the radars and utility vehicles, and at the same time nothing can be taken away without damaging the article' integrity. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 22:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, I think we should reflect what is in reliable independent sources. If you want to argue that these sources are reliable, when current consensus is that they aren't, then you need to got to WP:RSN. Guy (help!) 23:28, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- If you mean that Wikipedia should be closer to big media outlets in terms of the density of information it provides the reader with, I would disagree, since it's not clear then why it's called "Encyclopedia" and why a reader should use this website over some online magazines. Moreover, some systems just demand high level of detail in their description, since without it it would be impossible to create within the article a full picture of how they work. A good example of this is S-300: many versions, lots of missile types, complex regiment composition with all the radars and utility vehicles, and at the same time nothing can be taken away without damaging the article' integrity. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 22:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, that may indicate that we are including excessive detail. Guy (help!) 21:47, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I know, that's part of the reason why I am warning about a likely content depletion - the source is just too big and too widely used. When it comes to blogs, I think it's just about the very topic being too niche for the big outlets to cover in desired detail and frequency. Most of the time they would rather provide a simple informational contour and go in detail only when something really resonant happens, so there's simply not enough "credible" sources for an average Wikipedia military article. Let alone an article on some Russian system, since this is even more niche. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, topwar is blacklisted and has been for some time. And in fact virtually all areas related to weapons are plagued with sources that small groups of interested editors have decided are reliable because they need them to provide intricate levels of detail. This happens much less with railway articles (which I also follow). It's unclear why the blogs are so much more prevalent with weapons. Guy (help!) 21:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- By the way, "topwar" (mentioned in the link you've provided) is another example of this: while some of their articles are, indeed, filled with propagandistic rhetoric, the others may prove invaluable as a source of technical details or factology on a variety of military topics. So, it's a very strange situation you're putting us as editors in. I personally do not care about RT, but purging of "bmpd" (which is pretty neutral) and "topwar" from articles on Russian military is actually a catastrophe. I've no idea how and who is going to fill these insanely huge source holes now. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 21:06, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- Nicholas Velasquez, WP:RSN please, that's the correct venue for this. Guy (help!) 20:53, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
- RT is not listed in the so-called "blacklist", that's the important part. When it comes to BMPD, it is, indeed, a private blog, however it is widely referrenced to in the OSINT community and removing it from Wikipedia is just a mistake, since, when it comes to Russian weaponry, a lot of the times this blog is irreplaceable as a source. I understand it must be done in terms of strict following of the guidelines, but in the end this policy would just lead to a large-scale depletion of Wikipedia content on the topic. I think it would be much wiser in this case to leave evaluation of this source to the reader. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Your edit ...
... here is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Paul August ☎ 19:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- Paul August, this argument has happened a bazillion times. I am instructed, with equal certainty, that (a) I must remove the text when removing an invalid source; (b) I must leave the text and tag it {{cn}}; (c) I must leave the source and tag it as (e.g.) {{sps}} in the pious hope that someone might one day fix it without being told (a) or (b). In the end, the source was a self-published book from the world's biggest vanity press. I have no caring whether the text stays or goes, feel free to reinsert it with {{cn}} if you like, I am just trying to do the impossible: remove unreliable sources without being told that I am responsible for the death of Wikipedia. Guy (help!) 19:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) I hear you, Guy, but this is an extreme case of a very important baby, so thanks for restoring it, Paul. The article has a whole section about The Aeneid (why?), and it mentions stuff like the films Helen of Troy (1956) and The Trojan Horse (1961) — honestly — mentioning crap movies like those, and not mentioning the great Greek tragedians, whose works are still alive in legend and in song... I mean, I've even got a sock called Cassandra at the peak of her insanity! I agree the source was regrettable, and the text doesn't go very well in the section "Sources", but at least Aeschylus and Euripides get a look in. I'm reading our article Helen of Troy (film) here... I quote the NYT: "The human drama in the legend is completely lost or never realized in the utter banalities of the script, in the clumsiness of the English dialogue and in the inexcusable acting cliches". Not on a level with the Oresteia, then. Bishonen | talk 21:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC).
- As a general rule (a) is clearly wrong. Imagine what damage a clever vandal could do by going around adding such a source to perfectly good but unsourced paragraphs (such as are often found in the lede, whose sources are often given in the body), if they knew that someone would come around after them and remove the entire paragraph! But instead of (a), (b), or (c), why not do (d): read the text and figure out what sourcing it needs and provide it? (in the example I gave of a paragraph in the lede, it will often be the case that no sources are needed), or just do (e): find the edit where the verboten source was added and simply undue it? In the case that brought me here applying (e) would have been simply undoing this edit, while applying (d) might have led you to doing what I did here. Paul August ☎ 16:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
- Paul August, alternative hypothesis: material drawn from unreliable sources should be removed. A defensible position, since virtually nobody goes around refspamming onto unrelated content but lots of people insert dross based on a crappy source. Guy (help!) 20:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
- But in this case the material was not drawn from unreliable sources. That paragraph has been there since forever, originally unsourced (mostly per WP:BLUE I would presume). Then someone came along and added a "cn" tag, to the end of the paragraph, probably in regards to the only part of the paragraph that seems questionable, namely that Book 2 of the Aeneid "is thought to rely on material from the Cyclic Epic Iliou Persis". Then someone else came along and removed the tag suppling a "source". Why didn't you just undue their edit? Paul August ☎ 20:27, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
- Paul August, alternative hypothesis: material drawn from unreliable sources should be removed. A defensible position, since virtually nobody goes around refspamming onto unrelated content but lots of people insert dross based on a crappy source. Guy (help!) 20:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
- As a general rule (a) is clearly wrong. Imagine what damage a clever vandal could do by going around adding such a source to perfectly good but unsourced paragraphs (such as are often found in the lede, whose sources are often given in the body), if they knew that someone would come around after them and remove the entire paragraph! But instead of (a), (b), or (c), why not do (d): read the text and figure out what sourcing it needs and provide it? (in the example I gave of a paragraph in the lede, it will often be the case that no sources are needed), or just do (e): find the edit where the verboten source was added and simply undue it? In the case that brought me here applying (e) would have been simply undoing this edit, while applying (d) might have led you to doing what I did here. Paul August ☎ 16:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Valley of Bones
I have added more content sources to Valley of Bones. Please consider removing the tag on top that says it needs more sources. Craigwikiman (talk) 17:13, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Suvorov
Is there a particular reason why you reinserted an incorrect transliteration of Suvorov's family name after I corrected it?--Catlemur (talk) 09:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
- Catlemur, it was an accident - I was fixing a substitution error in a template and had opened the article for editing, for some reason it did not flag as an edit conflict. Guy (help!) 09:22, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Skara Brae
The author of the Lulu book is this guy.[1] Doug Weller talk 15:00, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
- Doug Weller, nice. Guy (help!) 15:05, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
RT, which is nto reliable
about your last edit to Julian Assange,
can you please explain what you mean about "RT, which is nto reliable"?
how can this RT_(TV_network)#Professional_awards are "nto reliable"?
if you read the Craig Murray article www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-1/ you easy discovery that none else than Murray can give you info about what really happened in the court (all media people have already got by "someone" their already done article to share, and they can not adding more)
--5.170.47.4 (talk) 21:24, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- We allow self-published sources such as blogs as sources for an individual's own statements on the article about them, but they are unsuitable for articles on other subjects. RT is a Russian propaganda publisher. The claim that all the mainstream media are "got" so only Murray and RT are reliable? That's a sure sign this is inappropriate. Guy (help!) 21:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you for reply. But, as it seems you don't have take time (the will) to read the Murray article, i just think your reply is a bit senseless, and you misunderstand what i've tried to let you know, understand. --5.170.47.4 (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- It's nothing to do with reading it. The publication method fails our sourcing guidelines. This is totally routine. We don't get to decide that something is reliable based on looking at the content, we are after editorial review, fact checking and other benchmarks of reliability which are simply absent in a blog. Guy (help!) 21:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you for reply. But, as it seems you don't have take time (the will) to read the Murray article, i just think your reply is a bit senseless, and you misunderstand what i've tried to let you know, understand. --5.170.47.4 (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Motorsports. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Motorsports/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 13, 2020, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Motorsports/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me | my contributions 00:43, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Template:Self-published source
Hi JzG. I noticed that your AWB edits adding Template:Self-published source are adding the parameter "certain", which doesn't exist in that template. Perhaps if you are using a find-and-replace, you can adjust it to exclude that parameter? --Bsherr (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Pre-2014 Lenta.ru
I've restored one link that you have deleted from Aslan Maskhadov article. While it's an article by Lenta.ru which is now in the RS blacklist (deservedly), the article in question is from 2005, long before the take-over by pro-government staff (this is a good summary by the Guardian).
In case you have removed other links to Lenta.ru article, I'd appreciate if you checked if there are any that date from before 2014. Alaexis¿question? 23:25, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Alaexis, sure. as long as it's been reviewed by a human, no biggie. Guy (help!) 23:29, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Knights of Columbus RfC on sources
Given your previous involvement, you may be interested in the RfC posted at Talk:Knights_of_Columbus#RFC_about_sources
Hope this isn't canvassing, just looking to invite an experienced editor with prior knowledge of the issues faced with this article. Slywriter (talk) 15:32, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
Have you seen
the discussion at FTN on Da Vinci Globe? And the sources used in the argument. Now I've discovered the author (Missinne) has the Austrian title of "Professor" which in Austria is given to school teachers, but CambridgeScholars uses it to make him look academic. Doug Weller talk 17:53, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
- Doug Weller, that's special. Guy (help!) 21:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
Please fix: [2]. :-) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow, FFS. I changed the URL, I previewed, I have no idea how that happened. Guy (help!) 01:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Maybe Template:Editnotices/Page/MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning needs to be shoutier? From the history, I see you're not the only one to do that. Something like testwiki:MediaWiki:Editnotice-8 maybe? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow, LOL! Guy (help!) 01:18, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Maybe Template:Editnotices/Page/MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning needs to be shoutier? From the history, I see you're not the only one to do that. Something like testwiki:MediaWiki:Editnotice-8 maybe? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
must not
undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather thanshould not
. - A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
Technical news
- Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
- The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.
A goat for you!
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No home is complete without a goat. Just to say thanks for the fabulous list of unreliable sources on your homepage. I laughed, I cried, I threw up.
TheLongTone (talk) 15:59, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- TheLongTone, Ha! Thanks. WP:CRAPWATCH and Headbomb have taken this way beyond what my meagre powers would achieve. Guy (help!) 16:48, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Vittore Cossalter
I Googled the author. The hits are mainly pages promoting these self-published books. Way down the list you get some academic work, but no signs that he's widely cited as an expert. Can you show me evidence that these self-published books, specifically, are considered to be authoritative? He has access to academic publishers (he has a normal amount of publications for an academic). I am deeply suspicious of any "reference" published via the world's most notorious vanity press: plenty of small craft presses exist that would publish niche work like this. Guy (help!) 22:06, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- What google returns in a search is not a good indication of someone's stature in a field.
- Cossalter:
- founded the Motorcycle Dynamics Research Group at Padova in 1986.
- has 1251 citations on ResearchGate.
- has 548 citations on Google Scholar just for "Motorcycle Dynamics" alone, including in "Advances in the Modelling of Motorcycle Dynamics" by Sharp, Evangelou, and Limbeer, which also refers to him by name: "but Cossalter et al have pioneered the inclusion of tyre width in their descriptions." That is the same Sharp who coined the terms "weave", "wobble", and "capsize" for the three main modes of a motorcycle in his 1971 paper, "The Stability and Control of Motorcycles", which itself has 568 citations on Google Scholar.
- That's about as widely cited as you can get in the field of bike dynamics. Suggesting that Cossalter is merely a self published hack is like saying Sheldon Brown is merely a bike mechanic. -AndrewDressel (talk) 22:54, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, I am not suggesting he is a "mere self-published hack". I am however stating that those books are self-published via a vanity press, which is an objective fact. Guy (help!) 08:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- But what is the point of stating that "objective fact" other than to "warn" readers not to trust the source? There are infinitely many "objective facts" you could insert into the article, and most of them are not constructive additions. My point is that effectively adding "scare quotes" to the citation diminishes it, and in this case, the citation should not be diminished. You might as well also include a tag pointing out that the author is "Italian", and we all know what that means. -AndrewDressel (talk) 13:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, you should be able to use expert=y Guy (help!) 14:04, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- A link to the documentation, which explains how I might do that, would improve my chances. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:27, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, you can find it at Template:Self-published source Guy (help!) 14:28, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Adding "expert=y" appears to make no difference. The reader still sees "[self-published source?]". The question mark at the end is especially cute, like you are just innocently asking a question instead of actually disparaging a highly-respected author and his work.
- Your talk page makes it clear that you have an axe to grind on the topic of "an on-demand print house, masquerading as an academic publisher" , and your edit summaries
- "Tagging / removing vanity press" - JzG
- "Rv good faith effort. Cossalter's book is definitely not "vanity press". The guy is a giant in the field with plenty of peer-reviewed papers that he simply edited into a book." - AndrewDressel
- "You'd need to prove this is not a self-published source" - JzG
- "Nope: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications," per wp:selfpub, all of which apply to Cossalter." - AndrewDressel
- "Googled the author. The hits are mainly pages promoting these self-published books. Way down the list you get some academic work, but no signs that he's widely cited as an expert." - JzG
- and responses above indicate that you are not familiar with the field of bike dynamics and that you are not willing to accept that your initial suspicion was incorrect. Familiarity with the topic is not required, of course, but I have repeatedly and calmly tried to explain the situation to you, and your mind appears to have been made up from the start. Your contributions to these articles are not helpful, and I wish you would focus your attention elsewhere. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:34, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, You don't appear to understand. It's tagged as a self-published source because it's a self-published source. That does not always mean it's a bad source - only about 99.9% of self-published sources are bad. I have advocated strongly for a self-published source before. If it still shows with the inline text, I suggest you mention it at the template talk page, because looking at the documentation it appears that qualified self-published sources should not be flagged in the text in that way. Guy (help!) 21:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
- LOL. I understand perfectly. You have a beef with self-published sources in general, as evidenced by your unsupported claim that "only about 99.9%" are "bad", and that's the end of the story. Nothing else matters. - 19:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, You don't appear to understand. It's tagged as a self-published source because it's a self-published source. That does not always mean it's a bad source - only about 99.9% of self-published sources are bad. I have advocated strongly for a self-published source before. If it still shows with the inline text, I suggest you mention it at the template talk page, because looking at the documentation it appears that qualified self-published sources should not be flagged in the text in that way. Guy (help!) 21:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, you can find it at Template:Self-published source Guy (help!) 14:28, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- A link to the documentation, which explains how I might do that, would improve my chances. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:27, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, you should be able to use expert=y Guy (help!) 14:04, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- But what is the point of stating that "objective fact" other than to "warn" readers not to trust the source? There are infinitely many "objective facts" you could insert into the article, and most of them are not constructive additions. My point is that effectively adding "scare quotes" to the citation diminishes it, and in this case, the citation should not be diminished. You might as well also include a tag pointing out that the author is "Italian", and we all know what that means. -AndrewDressel (talk) 13:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- AndrewDressel, I am not suggesting he is a "mere self-published hack". I am however stating that those books are self-published via a vanity press, which is an objective fact. Guy (help!) 08:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
I added a slew of sources based on your user page to my script (hence why I was tweaking your page). Feel free to revert if you prefer the old version.
I added most, but I skipped
- Cruft
- Gunwanking
- Random junk
- Spam in general
- Think tanks
- And a few others I didn't get a chance to evaluate much.
Mostly because they didn't seem to be used much, are presumably getting blocked in spamlists, or consensus doesn't seem very clear about how to classify them (e.g. the think tanks). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:51, 3 March 2020 (UTC)