Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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---

Request for Comment: Reliability of CBS News under Bari Weiss

How reliable is CBS News under the leadership of Bari Weiss? Prior discussion here.

The options are:

1. Generally reliable
2. Additional considerations needed
3. Generally Unreliable
4. Deprecate

Generalrelative (talk) 16:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

CBS News Weiss Survey

• Option 3: Generally Unreliable for any and all United States political (Federal, state, local), United States geopolitical, and related U.S. geopolitical matters related to Gaza, Iran, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, the European Union, and NATO. Anything sourced to modern Weiss CBS News for same needs additional corroborating non-CBS sourcing. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 14:51, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• The case for general unreliability is not made, imo, Pelley resisted whatever thing Weiss wanted. In other words, that shows editorial controls working. And "propaganda palooza" is another way to say very biased. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  What do you mean? He was fired. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  He was fired in June over things he said to a new show runner in June, who was not there in January. He was not fired in January, he resisted whatever Weiss wanted at that time. You are missing the context for my comment because the beginning of the RFC was changed after I left the above comment on June 23rd. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:36, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1. - a disgruntled former co-worker is not a reason to make a source unreliable. Also, this statement is patently false. “intentionally trying to kill an ICE officer (though he resisted,” PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:03, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Please put the text in the right section. Also, I made it clearer. RedDeadGuy (talk) 16:15, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  It still has the false statement. Pelley alleges that Weiss wanted him to state that Good was,

  "driving toward the officer" PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:31, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Whatever, the OP was rewritten. RedDeadGuy (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  But it's still not accurate. PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:58, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Option 3 It does appear that editorial interference is causing chaos at CBS. I would also periodize this specifically to the start of the Bari Weiss tenure. Example sources discussing the problems there: Simonm223 (talk) 16:33, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  "Causing choas" and declining ratings are not an indicator of source reliability. For those reasons Al Jazeera America I guess we can say was unreliable Longhornsg (talk) 03:14, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1. Evidence of unreliability has not been established; that the management has experienced problems is not unreliability. The idea of declaring 60 Minutes, one of the most significant news magazines ever, unreliable for delaying releasing something is ridiculous. PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Sources also report Weiss pressured Pelley to lie on his report about Renee Good. RedDeadGuy (talk) 17:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1/2/too soon we need to wait until the unreliable news has been published. There are reports they have thrown wrenches in the gears but we are by definition, taking a WP:LAGGING stance of the world (yeah i know thats a notability guideline, but we must take a wait and see approach)
  Bari weiss is definitely concerning but we need a smoking gun, not that she did editorail bias. Maybe we state cbs is a biased source now? (Though i feel we need more evn for that) User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 17:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Rhododendrites below captures my feelings exactly User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:29, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Note that we currently have FOX as MREL for non-political/science topics. Are we saying that CBS is even more biased than FOX, to the point that even their non-political/science reporting has to be considered GUNREL? If so, why? ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 17:26, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  For what it's worth I suppose that I at least Support Option 2 while reserving judgement on whether or not taking the step to Option 3 is warranted. Granted, I think most news outlets should be thought of as MREL for publications that amount to more than just basic news reporting, considering questionable editorial and Pulitzer Prize winners get published next to each other. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 18:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell, there are allegations of editorial interference and a ton of justifiable criticism directed at Weiss, but where is the pile of links showing uncorrected factual errors or other concrete problems with what's actually been published? There are all manner of news organizations more overtly biased than this that we nonetheless consider reliable because what they don't let that bias erode their factual accuracy. There are claims about efforts to do so at CBS, but to what extent has it happened? In general, while the legal and ideological capitulation of CBS News/its parents suggest a deleterious trajectory, we need to actually see that manifest in factual unreliability. TL;DR seriously premature, and as I've said before I'd love it if we could just stop using this genre of source-bucketing RfC for anything other than extreme cases. It's possible to just talk about what's going on with a source without jumping into a vote. Sigh. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:27, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah I also feel like we could have just had a standard discussion instead of reaching for the RfC button. It was about half a year ago since the last discussion about CBS and I'm not aware of widespread disputes about usage of it as a source. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 17:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Comment. Option 1. I agree with Rhododendrites. So far no evidence has been presented that CBS News is currently an unreliable source. There has been a lot of upset and a change in leadership that has recieved a lot of coverage. But that does not translate into general unreliability at this point. This survey is premature, imho. --Steve Quinn (talk) 17:44, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 with a side of too soon - I agree with others that we don't yet have sufficient evidence of breaching norms reliability, and I think Maltazarian's highlighting of how this case compares to FOX is relevant. That having been said, based on the RS reporting of Pelley's firing, there is a credible allegation that the editorial leadership of 60 Minutes insisted on including false reporting relating to Renee Good, that this was rejected by the journalist, and that the journalist was consequently fired; while I wouldn't throw out any of CBS News's coverage just yet, this incident gives cause for serious pause if we were to come across an example of CBS (and especially 60 Minutes) making WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims that aren't repeated by other RS, especially in relation to US politics. That's not GUNREL, but it's not quite GREL either. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:47, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  If CBS is firing journalists who refuse to falsify reports then it raises the question of how many journalists are complying to protect their jobs. Simonm223 (talk) 17:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  I think that's basically the essence of my argument, yes. CBS also tends to cover topics that get abundant attention from other RS, so it should be relatively simple to identify points where they do step out of line if that happens. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:01, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, the firing is not tied to the January reporting, much other stuff happened in May, and it centered on some supposed things he said in a meeting to a new producer who was not there in January. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:05, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  But the biased reporting wasnt published though.

  we cant judge a source for what wasnt published even if they got really close to having put it out. Im close to an option 2 myself but think we really cannot ding for bias until the trigger is pulled and we see cbs put stuff out we know is unreliabel/undue/biased af User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:30, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Option 3: Generally Unreliable There is clear evidence of political interference in CBS News output. This goes beyond WP:BIASEDSOURCES and is broadly on-par with a British tabloid newspaper now. Weiss isn't the only person in this story but her appointment was the crossing of the Rubicon marking a decisive shift away from responsible journalism. The decline started immediately after. Maybe there was some interference before that. Maybe there was some successful resistance to interference for a short time after that. Nonetheless, that's where the line should be drawn. I'm not sure if there is anything to gain by trying to set different levels for different topics. It's like the curate's egg. If any part of it is rotten then the whole thing is bad. It's about the organisation as a whole. (BTW, I see the disparity with Fox News. That's probably worth revisiting separately but it's off-topic here.) --DanielRigal (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Bias alone does not make a news source outright unreliable. It's when that bias interferes with their editorial processes to the point that errors are left uncorrected. Could you provide any actual examples of uncorrected errors in its reporting? After all, we didn't downgrade Fox News until we saw a recurring pattern of uncorrected errors in its reporting. SVG-image-maker (talk) 00:17, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

• Let's also note that CBS News New York does not run the news operations of its affiliates, each have there own editorial staff. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Comment. I agree with Rhododendrites. Should anyone want to read a copy of the letter firing Pelley / outlining the ostensible reasons for his firing, there's a copy here. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Speedy close Why was their no discussion prior to this, what evidence is there that the factual accuracy of CBS has changed? It's not until they do published fake news or false reporting that anything changes. Presupposing that change before it happens just makes Wikipedia look biased in the way that people tend to make up about us for money. I've watched with growing concerns the details coming out from within CBS, and the growing hyperbole of it's reporting. But bias doesn't mean a source unreliable, that has to be held onto. So until other sources start reporting on a change in the accuracy of CBS's reporting what are we doing here? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:03, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Ok this report from the independent directly calls into question CBS's reporting, so I've struck my !vote, but we should still have discussion this first. Is there any more of this outside of Pelley's firing? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Actively Disinterested. I saw this article from the Independent earlier today. The thrust of the article is criticism of Weiss's behavior but there has been no published anti-factual reporting, so far, that has come from CBS (that I know of). Also, notice that this article from the Independent was published on March 6th. So, that is two and one half months ago, and I have not been made aware of any unreliable reporting from CBS. I am thinking when the unreliable reporting happens other reputable news sources are sure to report on it. I surmise that it will become widely known very quickly. So, maybe Speedy Close is the best option at this point. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Agree. The independent article (reporting stuff from Zeteo and Semafor second hand) has a total of one (1) example of an egregious omission (an anchor not including mention of 1953 in a timeline of US-Iran relations) and zero (0)

examples of factual inaccuracy BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:25, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Also the Independent article is very Iran-specific, so as grounds for a downgrade it would only point to additional considerations about Iran specifically. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:28, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

This could all have avoided with some discussion before the RFC started, there really isn't enough here to have to go through the whole RFC process. But with more than a dozen editors already taking part it probably best to let this wind it's course. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah theres a broader issue of everyone being triggerhappy on rfc process on this noticeboard anyways. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:38, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I try and kill off as many unready and undiscussed RFCs as I can, but this one was well under way before I noticed it. There have been repeated evidenced free discussion about Weiss and CBS, maybe having a RFC result to point will actually help. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:55, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

There is no policy that allows

rfcs to be “killed” off early automatically. By the time an rfc is started, it usually has to be closed User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 13:01, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Sorry just short hand, try and persuade that RFCs are closed early and a normal discussion be had instead. RFCs or any other discussion can be closed by consensus of the participation without forming any consensus on the matter as hand. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:51, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

The issue of hasty RFCs is an editor issue anyway, rather than an issue with this noticeboard. There aren't that many 'regulars' here, and the few that are wouldn't brush to start a RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:07, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Speaking of Scott Pelley this from CBS Evening News the night after he was fired certainly suggests editorial independence from management. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

The thing with Pellet is that he's not independent of the situation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 07:18, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, that's true. But I was talking about CBS Evening News and what looks like some editorial independence from management, evidenced in the link. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo I don't think the current evidence is sufficient for changing the source's rating. I think that the current evidence indicates that a change will be warranted soon as it seems likely that there will be evidence that the organization's reporting is being significantly undermined and damaged - but we don't yet have that evidence. ElKevbo (talk) 22:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo, per Rhododendrites. This is premature, and absent a pattern of specific incidents I don't see how it would benefit editors to change the description at WP:CBS, except perhaps to add a small addendum about political bias. Cheers, Suriname0 (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 or anything that isn't option 3... this is WAY too soon, which has already been pointed out by editors above. aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 23:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 with an addendum to WP:CBS. I rewrote the RfC question as a courtesy to the OP, since I thought the issue deserved a hearing. In my view Option 3 is not supported by extant reliable sources, though I wouldn't be surprised if we have to revisit in a year or so. Option 2 is workable, and I agree entirely with Rosguill's !vote above. My own preference would be to retain GENREL (for now) but add to the entry at WP:CBS to state that additional scrutiny may now be required for claims related to politics. Generalrelative (talk) 23:50, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 Obviously we should be watching for any signs of bad reporting and editorial practices by CBS under Weiss, but at this point we really can't point to anything we can call foul on. The bulk of their reporting is in line with all other mainstream sources. They may not be as neutral as they were before Weiss, but remember that bias alone does not impact reliability; it has to be editorial standard going lax or outright failing because of that bias, like with Fox News. Masem (t) 00:02, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2, unfortunately, but it should be politics- and controversy-related – Now with stuff about Weiss and Trump, we can't treat CBS under Weiss the same as WP:CBS, can we? Now with departures of journalists from Weiss's CBS (People), we shouldn't rush into thinking this is the same CBS as it had been before Weiss and SkyDance takeover. George Ho (talk) 07:29, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 there has been nothing yet to indicate a change. We might suspect the change but we need some evidence of it being there. Andre🚐 07:48, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 In reading over the previous discussion I did not see any hard evidence of unreliability. It seemed mostly based on hunches. Slava570 (talk) 12:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 While concerns about CBS at the moment are legitimate, there needs to be evidence of a track record of misleading/inaccurate reporting that actually airs/is published before it is reevaluated. Also worth mentioning that the Free Press is listed at WP:Perennial Sources as being under additional considerations. EaglesFan37 (talk) 13:10, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo/Option 1. There is growing evidence of bias - which may or may not be worth including at WP:CBS - but no evidence of unreliability in published reporting has been presented here. Astaire (talk) 15:35, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1: I have yet to see any evidence of widespread falsehoods, or general unreliable reporting from CBS. I'm not opposed to adding a note to its entry at RSP though. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:31, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 Bari Weiss is certainly causing damage, but calling CBS News "generally unreliable" is a bridge too far at this point. We should be careful of editorial bias playing a role in their coverage, but they still have good journalists doing good journalism. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:36, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. There is strong evidence that leadership attempted to change the facts of a story to fit a political narrative. While there is no evidence that the factual changes made it into the reporting, the Paley interview also contains hints that the framing of the reporting had been changed to suit leadership, like portraying protestors to be more violent for example. So, while there is no clear evidence that factual reporting has been slaved to the political narrative, that seems to have been the goal. Caution is therefore advised using CBS for any contentious reporting. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:02, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 / Status quo. No evidence has been provided that CBS News has become unreliable, even if a more rightward slant is being imposed. Bias, be it liberal of conservative, isn't defacto reason for unreliablity per WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Acceptable bias include choosing what issues to cover and what not to cover. Mother Jones is considered a biased yet reliable sources, as is the Daily Telegraph and The New Reepublic, although the distinction between news and partisan opinion is often blurred in such sources. It's very fashionable to hate on Bari Weiss because she's not as liberal as many other prominent journalists, and she has made some decisions I'd call bad, but that alone isn't reason for downgrading CBS's reliability yet. What I see is evidence that journalists and commentators assume news media is, and should be, left-leaning by default, and become upset when this worldview is challenged. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:43, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Mostly 1 with a dash of 2, much per Muboshgu above. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 per others above. Don't see evidence yet that CBS News has become unreliable. Some1 (talk) 01:43, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 Is Bari Weiss a poor manager? Quite possible. Does Bari Weiss have opinions? It seems so. We know/assume every corporate news organization is biased. We know/assume every corporate news organization gets things wrong. What we don't have is evidence that puts the reporting itself beyond the pale, certainly not generally and not even specifically. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:03, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. No evidence for lack of reliability. I've checked the first three links prvided by u:Simonm223 and none of them even mentions reliability issues. Alaexis_¿question? 12:47, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. My fellow editors have made the case far better than I could. I think this is premature and I have seen no evidence of decreased factuality CBS' reporting under Weiss. Most of the arguments on the other side here are about bias which is different than factuality. Redvelvetvanilaaaaaaaaa (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1, on grounds of anything else would be going out of our way to prove Larry Sanger's point. Samuelshraga (talk) 13:05, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 - no evidence of lack of reliability. DoubleCross (‡) 13:55, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo/Option 1 The evidence of any issues here is limited at best. Certainly there is no evidence of factual errors for false claims. Even the claims of bias are still in the areas where it can be reasonable differences of opinion vs anything more. With any media source we really should be more careful with how we use them and spend more time deciding if the actual facts/claims make sense rather than using any blanket rule. But within the confines of the simpleton 3 bucket system the status quo is fine here. Springee (talk) 10:38, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo Decisions should be based on demonstrated problems and not predictions. My crystal ball isn't reliable enough to downgrade a source before the evidence exists. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status Quo/Option 1 I think there is pretty decent evidence that CBS has shifted to the right. I also think that if all allegations made are true, Weiss has created a less-than-good work environment. But there has been no significant evidence of unreliability, no large-scale change in editorial policy, and no other issues in that category. Bad management and right-wing politics, even if many consider them morally bad, are not factors in reliability. FortunateSons (talk) 17:18, 27 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo I'll by saying Bari Weiss has not done CBS any favors she's taken control of the organization. For example, losing Scott Pelley is certaintly an loss to the image and nostalgic CBS and 60 minutes that many grew up with. However, when I look at CBS and its local affiliates they still do good work. I also have to imagine Bari Weiss will not be at helm forever if this dive in ratings continue. I don't want a downgraded rating to impact the ability of us to use the great local reporting affiliates do or rely on the investigative reporting that's still done. You can argue CBS isn't what it used to be and there is certainly a political shift. But we have to think about its actual reliability and the long-term impact of a downgrade.AadamentAardvark (talk) 15:58, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
• Status quo Weiss is trying her best to make CBS worse, but bias =/= unreliability and I haven't seen any info presented here that they've outright reported false info a la Fox or OAN (yet). The Kip ^(contribs) 14:12, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. Decreasingly reliable on contentious US politics wherever Weiss intervenes. There's a reason we don't consider The Free Press generally reliable. CopyleftEverything (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  We don't consider TFP GREL because they're a start-up publication with a very short/unproven track record in addition to their considerable bias. As much as Weiss is trying to wreck it, CBS has a far longer record. The Kip ^(contribs) 16:02, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah thefp is considered a self published substack by bari weiss, isnt it? User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 17:30, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  Started as a substack, now it’s its own site with a wider news staff iirc. The Kip ^(contribs) 00:03, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

  No, it's not self-published, at least mostly not. It wasn't in 2024, and is still not today. Bari Weiss is the founder, and but one of several senior editors. She may well be chief editor, and until CBS acquired the FP may even have been considered the publisher, but aside from articles she wrote herself, most articles by the various contributors, staff writers, and columnists are not self-published as Wikipedia defines it. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:28, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo/Option 1 What's the rush? Stikkyy (talk) 01:11, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 Too soon. No evidence of a pattern of misleading reporting yet. The Inside CECOT scandal doesn't affect reliability since that's what they didn't air. Start this again when there's proof we're actually at risk of getting false claims sourced to CBS in articles. Flounder fillet (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
• 1. Generally reliable – there is no evidence to support any other conclusion, other than editors' personal distaste for Weiss. We're not supposed to be guided by such motivations, however. Bravelake (talk) 06:21, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

  Uh... You or I may wanna move this vote further down. Don't ya think? George Ho (talk) 01:08, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  Done. RedDeadGuy (talk) 05:50, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  Sorted chronologically. George Ho (talk) 06:49, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

• Status quo/Option 1. While I'm personally concerned about the direction of CBS under Bari Weiss, no actual examples of unreliability (published false claims) have been provided. CBS is not the same as its editor-in-chief. Plus, being more WP:BIASED in a certain direction isn't the same as being unreliable. Cadddr (talk) 17:23, 9 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1. While there's claims of editorial inference from malcontents, but no evidence provided that CBS News has become less systematically reliable for factual claims, or that alleged falsehoods have made it into news reporting. Allegations about editorial direction are not, by themselves, sufficient to overturn the long-standing consensus that a major national newsroom such as CBS News, which has over 1,000 employees, is generally reliable for factual statements. Any concerns about bias or editorial judgment should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis rather than used to evolve the source's reliablability wholesale. Longhornsg (talk) 17:27, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 3: Generally Unreliable Especially when it comes to reporting on Israel which she admits she's heavily biased about. Scott Pelley, of course, raised major legitimate doubts, and she fired numerous other people for their views on Israel. Given time I could find dozens of sources raising doubt and who she fired. The New owners of CBS are openly biased in favor of Israel, and if it was only based on this subject I might vote for option 3 Deprecate. CBS has become a disaster surprisingly fast, including her killing a story related to ICE. Zacherystaylor (talk) 19:55, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

  Bias itself does not make a source unreliable. We need a pattern of published and uncorrected factual errors to deem a source unreliable. Just for comparison, we didn't downgrade Fox News until we saw a recurring pattern of factual errors.

  (PS: Many scholars now use the terms "pseudo-journalism" or "pseudo-news", instead of the now-weaponized term "fake news".) SVG-image-maker (talk) 20:15, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

  I haven't collected all the stories about this, but I know there are a lot, including many reporters claiming they were fired for political views, and reports of her killing credible stories. Pelley mentioned some of them, others which I'm not sure he mentioned include Former ‘60 Minutes’ Staffers Unload on Bari Weiss: ‘Everything She’s Touched Has Turned to S—’, CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' story, sparking outcry, Bari Weiss faces blowback for spiking ’60 Minutes’ segment: What to know and of course, one of the things Scott Pelley reported is that she wanted to make it look like a protester killed by ICE was trying to run the officer down even though Pelley and other sources claimed the evidence showed this was false. If this can be verified it alone would be evidence of trying to falsify News. Zacherystaylor (talk) 21:18, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1, nothing has been shown that I have seen indicates the source under consideration does not meet WP:IRS; just because the source no longer is blatantly biased towards a certain part of a political spectrum as it was in the recent past does not mean it's generally unreliable.--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 23:09, 10 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. I don't think CBS News is generally unreliable at this point, but additional considerations apply when it comes to US politics and especially Israeli politics after they installed Weinstein as a political officer thinly disguised as an ombudsman. Cortador (talk) 09:19, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  Why Israeli politics? And source that describes Weinstein as a "political officer"? Longhornsg (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

  There is no sourcing or basis for most of the opinions expressed here. Its mainly a reflection of their personal distaste for Weiss. Bravelake (talk) 02:30, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 or some form of "additional considerations apply." I would first of all encourage editors to review our own CBS News page, as it does not seem like many of the editors dismissing reliability concerns at CBS are aware of all of the reported evidence, which goes beyond the concerns that their comments demonstrate an understanding of. That being said, much of the strongest evidence of CBS's editorial bias that would affect its reliability relates to what it did not publish, due to political interference. Many editors have said that what an outlet does not publish has no impact on its reliability, but I do not think this is exactly true. If we are using GREL sources to evaluate notability, then CBS cannot be used (at least not on its own) to determine notability on-Wiki. If CBS doesn't publish on a topic, or doesn't publish certain material on a topic, that cannot be used as an argument that the material is non-notable, as we can no longer be sure that CBS's evaluation of its notability is based in an objective, journalistic analysis. I also think it's important to call for some standard of consistency here. Having participated in the above discussion on Democracy Now!, I've noticed several editors making what strike me as ranging from somewhat to blatantly contradictory comments on these two RFCs. Whether or not the evidence against CBS is compelling, I think it is clearly more substantial than anything brought up about DN. On Democracy Now! Springee says The source is very biased and we should be careful about both what facts they cite as well as what they may have left out. (Emphasis mine.) On CBS, they say The evidence of any issues here is limited at best. Certainly there is no evidence of factual errors for false claims. I do agree with their subsequent statement that With any media source we really should be more careful with how we use them and spend more time deciding if the actual facts/claims make sense rather than using any blanket rule., but I would say that applying that principle consistently would require a downgrade to parity with their view of DN. Alaexis believes that Democracy Now's being financed by various nonprofit foundations impacts its reliability, by virtue of a lack of independence, but seems to think that CBS being purchased by an oligarch who installed a loyalist director to axe longtime journalists amounts to No evidence for lack of reliability. Other editors (on both sides) are blatantly ignoring WP:PARTISAN and, in my assessment of their comments, are substantially influenced by their own biases in determining their votes. Altogether, I think that reading these discussions in the context of each other demonstrates that the way discussions on the RSN noticeboard are currently being conducted is not working. A largely vote-based ranking system gives editors too much of a chance to leave drive-by comments based on their subjective assumptions that are difficult to substantively engage with. Consequently, the perennial sources list is tainted by its being in large part a reflection of the pro-Western, center-left systemic bias of Wikipedia editors. My assessment is that we need a system where the discussion of a source (or a compilation of discussions) rather than a vote on it serves as the precedent for its future evaluation. This reform would mean that editors need to apply past discussions to the specific context in which a source is being evaluated for on-Wiki use, leading to more granular, contextual guidance for use of sources rather than sweeping generalizations about them. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 13:05, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

  I believe that my words have been taken out of context. I wrote that DN is "financed by various nonprofit foundations" in response to the claim that they don't have "government funding, corporate sponsorship, underwriting or advertising revenue". So to clarify, I do not think that non-profit funding (or ad funding for that matter) by itself bears on the reliability of a source. I see the point you're making but I don't think the two outlets are comparable, given the more pronounced bias and minimal original reporting of DN. Alaexis_¿question? 16:13, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

  Appreciate your clarification. As your comment is primarily clarifying your stance on DN, I'll reply there when I have some time. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 13:41, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

  If CBS doesn't publish on a topic, or doesn't publish certain material on a topic, that cannot be used as an argument that the material is non-notable, as we can no longer be sure that CBS's evaluation of its notability is based in an objective, journalistic analysis. I think this argument is not based in policy, represents a massive innovation in how we apply notability, and couldn't possibly be consistently applied. In part this is because when an outlet chooses not to cover something, we can never be sure whether they've made a principled, objective, journalistic decision.

  There's no history of downgrading sources for sins of omission in what they choose to cover. Potentially if within a particular story, omissions were so glaring that the coverage was misleading, that would be something to look at. However, even that would be a stretch - generally we can only use a source for something it directly says. If we were to start doing this, we would have to do evaluations of basically every outlet, and maybe even academic sources that can be shown to have "ignored" particular viewpoints/ideas/findings. It's a rabbit hole we shouldn't even think about entering. Samuelshraga (talk) 19:14, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

  On re-reading Monk's comment (specifically If CBS doesn't publish on a topic, or doesn't publish certain material on a topic), we never say that because a particular source didn't write about something, it's not notable. Notability is established by the sources that exist, not by those that don't. There is no "indispensable" source, and CBS is no different from any other source on this basis. If all this is is to say that we should treat CBS just like any other reliable source, let's just say that. Otherwise, the whole analysis is fatally flawed. Samuelshraga (talk) 19:20, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

  I hear you about the difficulty, even impossibility of evaluating a single source based on what it hasn't said. I'm not advocating for the sort of assessment you are describing. I am thinking of a determination of notability in the context of a comparative analysis of reliable sources, which is regularly invoked when deciding on a content dispute and is, to my understanding, rooted in policy. For example, in determining the title of a controversial article such as Israeli invasion of Syria (2024-present) [1] [2], arguments about what some sources have said are weighed against what other sources have not. In this discussion, use of euphemistic language by a chunk of the most reliable sources presents a problem where a plausible WP:COMMONNAME goes against WP:EUPHEMISM and is incongruent with the facts on the ground. This is a context in which I believe bias, especially the systemic bias of a collection of sources usually deemed acceptable, can affect reliability. These cases most often arise in instances where media covers an issue of perceived existential importance to one or more nation-states that have power or influence over their operations, and whom the media outlet depends on for things like source access, broadcasting licenses, or in cases of overt or soft censorship 1 2. In the case of CBS News, what's going on must be understood not just as a shift in its perspective, but as a coordinated attempt to coerce a shift in its perspective by powerful actors. The evidence of its bending the knee to the Trump administration includes editorial pressure to make unverified assertions, granting a preferred interviewer to government officials, uncritical repetition of false claims, and conflicts of interest. I consider that sufficient to warrant a reliability consideration in the context of its weighting during a comparative analysis. I don't consider myself a policy expert, but I am experienced enough in discussions on content to know that this is a common practice. It's a predominant way that controversial content questions are decided. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 13:39, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

  Altogether, I think that reading these discussions in the context of each other demonstrates that the way discussions on the RSN noticeboard are currently being conducted is not working. A largely vote-based ranking system gives editors too much of a chance to leave drive-by comments based on their subjective assumptions that are difficult to substantively engage with. Consequently, the perennial sources list is tainted by its being in large part a reflection of the pro-Western, center-left systemic bias of Wikipedia editors. My assessment is that we need a system where the discussion of a source (or a compilation of discussions) rather than a vote on it serves as the precedent for its future evaluation. This reform would mean that editors need to apply past discussions to the specific context in which a source is being evaluated for on-Wiki use, leading to more granular, contextual guidance for use of sources rather than sweeping generalizations about them.

  This statement is spot on. As I have ventured into RSN more and more, I have supported discontinuing the three-tier "Option 1/Option 2/Option 3" system entirely. The problem with this system is that it assumes that a single publication/website is a monolithic entity, when it really isn't. News websites are frequently divided into "journalistic reporting" and "opinion/editorial" sections with the first being more reliable than the second. When publications change ownership, editors-in-chief, and so on, this may also increase or decrease the reliability of subsequent articles. We learned the hard way with Red Ventures and Valnet. And many other factors play a role. SVG-image-maker (talk) 01:08, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

  Pasting in some of my comment in the above discussion that pertains to CBS, to ensure it is read by the closer of this discussion:

  The postponement of the Inside CECOT story came as the result of direct political pressure from the Trump administration, and calls into question CBS's independence, its commitment to truthful reporting, and its willingness to stand up to government intimidation. Furthermore, the justifications for postponement are lacking; Weiss said that the government had not been given an adequate opportunity to give their side of the story, but in fact government officials declined to be interviewed. Arguably, this demonstrates that Weiss intended her editorial intervention to go beyond omissions of fact to distortions of fact. Sharyn Alfonsi, who was fired over her efforts to retain the story's independence, said she was penalized for "refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting." ... If anything can be considered a clear-cut criteria for a designation of unreliability, it would be a documented distortion of fact. The debate over CBS seems to hinge on whether or not it has crossed this threshold, and specifically over whether or not the documentation of its crossing this threshold is sufficient. I should not have said that much of the strongest evidence of CBS's editorial bias that would affect its reliability relates to what it did not publish, due to political interference, because there is actually quite a bit of evidence that Weiss's editorial interference is closer to factual distortion. First, in the example of the Inside CECOT controversy, Weiss wanted to postpone the airing of a factually accurate story because she felt that not just any government, but a government that has demonstrated its willingness to lie viciously and brazenly on this very topic, only relenting when forced to by contradictory evidence, was not having its perspective adequately represented. In other words, she wanted to give the government more of a chance to inject factual distortions into the story. Katie Couric similarly criticized CBS coverage of January 6th on the grounds that editors had allowed the Trump administration and its supporters to repeat falsehoods about the events without adequate scrutiny, creating false balance in an attempt to appear unbiased ... I should have put the editorial pressure to make unverified assertions, granting a preferred interviewer to government officials, uncritical repetition of false claims, and conflicts of interest front-and-center in my first comment, as this is the strongest evidence in favor of a downgrade. Upon reflection, I would add to this list the uncritical airing of Trump's "election security" speech the other week, which other networks refused to do, due to his absurdly false claims about the 2020 election. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

  Replying here inasmuch as it's about CBS, I replied above about DN.

  It's rare that blanket statements should be made at RSN, but honestly it should be obvious that we don't downgrade a source for reporting a government's comment on political controversies. Repeating the commentary in its own voice? We'd have a problem. But this level of argument gets to WP:IDONTLIKEIT territory: CBS aired a Trump speech in which he lied, so we should downgrade it? Are we going to apply that standard to all politicians? Or if we live in the cosy American echo chamber where Donald Trump lives in his own unique character of mendaciousness, are we going to apply it to any source that ever airs a speech by Donald Trump? I'm assuming they all have at some point anyway.

  You've written a lot but you haven't answered my point. All sources are biased. We don't need to agree on which of these sources is more biased. As your point 3 says, factual distortion is a reliability issue, but your examples of factual distortion are one story that was postponed, and some times when CBS aired the US government's comments on stories. I assume these comments were attributed to the US government? No reliability issue. Correctly recording the government's comments is pretty basic and standard. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:57, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

  Airing the statements of a government that systematically distorts facts and outright lies, without any critical coverage, especially when under clear coercive pressure from that government and its private sector allies, is exactly what has led to many a state-aligned source in other countries being downgraded in its reliability. Yes, Donald Trump and his administration are uniquely mendacious in recent American history, and this has been widely documented. The pressure that administration is exerting on CBS, and its unique lack of resistance to that pressure, is well documented too. Wikipedia's failure to adapt to this development will be to its detriment. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 15:55, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

  exactly led to many a state-aligned source in other countries being downgraded in its reliability. Which sources exactly? Genuine question. Samuelshraga (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

  I was able to find China Daily, Arab News, Telesur, Venezuelanalysis, Xinhua News Agency. According to the perennial sources table, these sources were downgraded for their bias and lack of distance from government pressure, but have not been accused of outright, systematic factual distortion. In my opinion, western sources operating under similar conditions have been given too much leniency by comparison. As I've said, I would like to see more granular analysis of source reliability in these discussions. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 16:28, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

  You said that these sources have not been accused of outright, systematic factual distortion.

  The actual RSP entries:

  • Telesur's says Many editors state that Telesur publishes false information. As a state-owned media network in a country with low press freedom.
  • Venezuelanalysis' says most editors question its accuracy and editorial oversight.

  You said these sources were downgraded for their bias and lack of distance from government pressure:

  • China Daily's RSP entry: China Daily is a publication owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
  • Xinhua News Agency's: Xinhua News Agency is the official state-run press agency of the People's Republic of China.
  • Arab News' says Arab News is closely associated with the Saudi Arabian government and is published in a country with low press freedom. Specifically, it's owned by the King's son and they have a history in which the government has directly dismissed journalists.

  Feel free to put whatever your next argument is for downgrading, I won't rebut any more of them. Samuelshraga (talk) 16:43, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

  I concede that I misread some of those entries in a hurry to reply to you. However, that doesn't change the fact that a wealthy and influential Trump ally purchasing and consolidating media outlets with the explicit intention of influencing their coverage in a direction favorable to a uniquely mendacious government is, or at the very least will soon become, cause for a reliability concern. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 17:23, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

  The fact that those foreign news sources have not been declared "unreliable" for their propaganda on behalf of their governments while mainstream conservative sources like Daily Wire are deemed unreliable is a sign that something is seriously wrong with the accounting of sources. Almost no western source operates under conditions that approach that level, except for maybe the most extreme right-wing sources like OANN and Newsmax, but they're the exceptions. Mk8mlyb (talk) 16:44, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

  That's not quite correct. From that list of sources, Telesur (RSP entry) is deprecated and Venezuelanalysis (RSP entry) is classified as generally unreliable. For China, low-quality sources such as Global Times (RSP entry) have been deprecated, while Xinhua News Agency (RSP entry) remains usable because it is one of the highest-quality general news sources available in the country. On a country level, we have historically tried to identify sources at both ends of the reliability spectrum. And finally, please note that the English Wikipedia is not the American Wikipedia, so what is "foreign" to one editor is "domestic" to another subset of editors in the community. — Newslinger talk 06:43, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 per Rosguill. While it doesn't seem like we have clear evidence CBS under Bari Weiss has actually falsified information, we do have clear evidence that the higher ups have attempted to and failed, which bodes poorly. Loki (talk) 23:36, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

  I should probably add that I am more sympathetic to Option 3 than Option 1. Loki (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2, Oppose 3 or 4 The reliable source page frequently takes stances of caution in the time between an acquisition and the confirmation of deterioration (e.g. WP:POLYGON, and I believe that there is sufficient cause to view the takeover as warranting a similarly cautionary message at most. Relm (talk) 09:30, 14 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 Option 2 for now but circle back after another 6 months to see if it gets worse. Right now its clear they have lost a lot of their neutrality from past but not all of it; yet. ContentEditman (talk) 20:27, 21 July 2026 (UTC)
• Soft Option 2 per User:Monk of Monk Hall, I think the changes to CBS appear to be more in the omission than the commission. We should take that into account when evaluating overall newsworthiness, but individual stories are likely fine. Deckocard21 (talk) 02:04, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1 - They are still a major broadcaster and we don't depreciate sources just because we disagree with them. Weiss having a viewpoint (which is not shared across the newsroom) is not germane to whether the source's reporting itself is accurate. Dcpoliticaljunkie (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 Its a major American broadcaster along with ABC and NBC. Directors of news rooms come and go just because Weiss's ideological leanings (and I have issues with some of them) are different than the previous newsroom's "politics" should not impact the reliability of a news source and there has been no evidence that Weiss's politics have skewed the reporting. Agnieszka653 (talk) 13:34, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Option 2

• Scott Pelley said he was asked to inject falsehoods into reporting about Renee Good and was fired when he refused
• Inside CECOT undermines their editorial integrity
• Cecilia Vega said she felt like she was being pressured in a way that came from a place of [wanting to spread] misinformation
• This CBS video feels like state propaganda with an obvious political agenda. Being WP:BIASED isn't grounds for a downgrade, but when a previously liberal network suddenly starts publishing North Korea-esque pro-Marco Rubio puff pieces after a closed-door meeting with Stephen Miller, there are serious questions about their editorial integrity, and trust must be rebuilt if they wish to earn back a WP:GENREL designation.

I haven't seen very much evidence their factuality has taken a hit outside a few individual cases which is why I said 2 rather than 3, but the few individual cases presented are rather egregious and go beyond what WP:GENREL are permitted to get away with. WP:NYT has systemic bias and editorial interference, but not to the point of suddenly doing a 180 and pushing out favorable reporting for Trump. Additional considerations for US politics related to Trump I think are appropriate. Enough blunders have been made recently that I do not think WP:GENREL is appropriate until they rebuild our trust. Revisit in 6 months, WP:MREL for now. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

The Inside CECOT scandal, where CBS pulled publication of a segment, then aired it four weeks later with minor modification to include government comment in a story about the government. Deprecate the bastards.

And insult to injury, they did a fluffy 1 minute segment about Marco Rubio memes. Was there anything incorrect in that segment? Are you concerned that people will cite it for false information? Is CBS unique in running short and silly segments relating to politicians? I note that in the UK Nigel Farage is running in a head-to-head election against one Count Binface - I dearly hope no GREL outlets have been light-hearted about this race at any time.

You've said numerous times above that bias doesn't mean unreliability, and you haven't pointed to anything they've published that's in any way incorrect. Samuelshraga (talk) 09:08, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

A better analogy would be if members of Count Binface's cabinet had secret meetings with a news outlet and the outlet suddenly started pumping out pro-Binface news segments. Would I consider that news source reliable? Probably not, because it suggests their journalistic integrity is seriously compromised. If they are in bed with Count Binface, that is relevant to what we can assume about their capacity to engage in factual reporting going forward relating to Count Binface, hence an additional considerations designation.

you haven't pointed to anything they've published that's in any way incorrect Multiple 60 Minutes reporters have explicitly reported that higher-ups implored them to engage in inaccurate reporting. This raises concerns about what kind of reporting we can expect going forward.

Inside CECOT is an example of the Trump admin exerting pressure against CBS. Can we trust them to report factually on Trump going forward when they have demonstrated they respond to external pressures directly from the Trump admin?

I agree though this may be a bit premature since so far CBS has not published much I've seen that is factually incorrect like you mentioned, so my expression of support for option 2 is more of a prophylactic measure than anything else out of an anticipation of a degradation of factual reporting quality. Is that inappropriate? Honestly I'm not sure, and maybe my vote should soften until better evidence is presented. I'll change my vote to support for option 1 or 2 because you raise a fair point in your final sentence, but I'm still not encouraged by the recent allegations by Pelley and Vega. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 09:46, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

• Observation - The concerns raised here seem to be heavily centered on one program: 60 Minutes. Before we downgrade an entire network, I think we need to examine CBS’s reputation beyond that one program. Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 28 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1, per Rhododendrites. Also, I haven't heard any complaints about 60 Minutes broadcasts beyond the stuff about Ms. Good being shot, and I think CBS was accurate about that, CBS didn't say anything different about that incident from what other reliable sources said, AFAIK. Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:25, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

1. Generally reliable. Kprtqrf06 (talk) 12:48, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

• Option 1 - No change is necessary. Nemov (talk) 14:29, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1, per Rhododendrites. --Andreas JN466 16:41, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 per others, not seeing enough evidence at this point for lesser reliability.JSwift49 23:23, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1--This is nothing more than a hit piece on Bari Weiss and an attempt to denigrate someone who won't go along with left-wing orthodoxy. While there are some legitimate criticisms of her inexperience for the role, there is very little to indicate that she is turning CBS into a mouthpiece for the Trump administration. I have previously criticized Wikipedia for attempting to blacklist certain sources and promote left-wing bias in its reporting under the guise of combating "misinformation". This attempt to deprecate CBS News for being run by someone who would normally be considered a center-left liberal or centrist proves that point. Mk8mlyb (talk) 06:34, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1- Per othersMichael Boutboul (talk) 06:51, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

CBS News Weiss Discussions

Added these subsections. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 14:52, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. RedDeadGuy (talk) 15:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

As I see, the RFC tag is removed because the OP isn't written neutrally. I'm thinking about writing a more neutral statement for the subsection "Written for RFC tag". Would that be all right? —George Ho (talk) 15:26, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah this was not formulated neutrally and should not be an RfC in its current form. Simonm223 (talk) 15:28, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Can I readd the RfC tag while George rewrites it? RedDeadGuy (talk) 15:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

No, you should wait for a neutrally worded RfC statement before adding the tag. Otherwise you're wasting other editors' time. Generalrelative (talk) 16:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Go ahead, then. RedDeadGuy (talk) 15:29, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• RedDeadGuy I have rewritten the RfC statement myself, and posted your original non-neutral statement below. You may wish to move this to a !vote in the Survey section. If you do so, feel free to delete this comment. Generalrelative (talk) 16:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  The combination of Generalrelative's and my statements was attempted, but then Generalrelative changed it back. (Could've been mixed better, IMO, if Generalrelative let it be, but...) I didn't realize how important deadline or timing may be more than patience. Sorry for letting you both down a lot. Still, I did wanna post right away, but edit conflicts interfered. BTW, Generalrelative's statement is... very, very brief. Too brief perhaps? George Ho (talk) 16:57, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  Guess we just have to live with it. RedDeadGuy (talk) 17:07, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@whoever uninvolved closes this RFC discussion: please note that headcount alone does not constitute consensus. Indeed, IMO, arguments should weigh more than mere votes. George Ho (talk) 20:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Any closer that's not doing that shouldn't be closing discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:41, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I just now (re-)read WP:SOURCEBIAS, and I can't help wonder whether others have read and then enforced that policy. CBS under Weiss may have bias, though bias alone doesn't make sources inherently disallowed. Nonetheless, I really wish other aspects of CBS and Bari Weiss were further explored or researched before this RFC. George Ho (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I am going to toss in this new report from this week from Cecilia Vega, a fired journalist for 60 minutes, who said she was pressured to include misinformation within reports (which she refused and was fired for) . Now, that doesn't mean that what CBS is pushing now is necessarily misinformation, we need sources to point to specific stories that contain such, but this needs to be kept in mind. Masem (t) 11:21, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Dont think this changes fhe needle, but this is why premature rfcs are problematic as well. Need all these reports to comeout, we need a smoking gun not smoke to change a well worn consensus from decades past User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:03, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The problem I see is that if all of the people refusing to engage in factual distortion are being fired, it's going to be harder and harder to know which facts are being distorted in the future. Should firing basically the entire staff of 60 minutes after they each pushed back against distortion not carry the presumption that future reporting will be distorted? Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 14:39, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Again not yet solid evidence of bad reporting to make CBS questionable, but it has been announced that 60 Minutes is pulling in a number of known conservative journalists. Purportedly this is to help the show reach a younger audience. Making it all the more to watch for actual demonstratable bad reporting. Masem (t) 20:27, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Previous OPs (CBS News)

There are currently accusations from reliable sources saying Bari Weiss has turned CBS into a Donald Trump propaganda machine. Inside CECOT was just one of the issues. Former 60 Minutes member Scott Pelley accused her of demanding him to alter the story regarding the killing of Renee Good to show her as intentionally trying to kill an ICE officer (though he resisted), something that is false but in line with the administration's claims, and has been accused of running a "propaganda-palooza" regarding the 2026 Iran War.

Sources:

• https://zeteo.com/p/bari-weiss-cbs-iran-war-dukoupil
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cbs-bari-weiss-iran-war-trump-b2933098.html
• https://www.ms.now/news/scott-pelley-cbs-news-60-minutes-firing-statement
• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/magazine/scott-pelley-interview.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/arts/television/scott-pelley-60-minutes-interview-takeaways.html
• https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/01/media/scott-pelley-nick-bilton-60-minutes-cbs-bari-weiss

RedDeadGuy (talk) 14:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

There goes my (other) statement:

The reliability of CBS News has been discussed, e.g. prior discussions from December 2025 (with a conclusion) and from January 2026 (archived without closure). Recently, its reliability has been debated and questioned, especially with the management of Bari Weiss and now ex-CBS anchor Scott Pelley's statement about CBS under Weiss trying to favor President Donald Trump and his views and statements.

As-is, WP:CBS labels CBS News as "generally reliable". However, is CBS News under Bari Weiss also "generally reliable"? If not, then which of the other following options: (2) "additional considerations needed", (3) "generally unreliable", or (4) "deprecate"?

Well... which one is better? George Ho (talk) 16:27, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I think yours has less bias. Putting it up! RedDeadGuy (talk) 16:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Propose speedy close (CBS News)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This RFC was created in good faith. However, it is too soon. I think it would be better not to waste people's valuable time and have people come here as they see the RFC in the feeds. I suggest that this RFC be speedily closed. So, this begins a survey, with the question: Should we Speedy Close this discussion? Support, Oppose, or whatever you want to post. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 23:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support ---Steve Quinn (talk) 23:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Oppose-- As the OP. RedDeadGuy (talk) 23:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

This shouldn't have been started from scratch. As per the header and edit notice RFCs shouldn't be opened without prior discussion. That discussion could have laid out any new evidence of issues at CBS, rather than the muddle we're currently in. But as so many editors have already engaged with the RFC it has become a bit late to stop it now. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 07:23, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

• What would be useful, is to come up with a kind roadmap for such discussions especially of organizations with long-standing decent reputations, like we had one of these on the BBC awhile ago. Such as, 'pattern of serious erroneous reporting or fabrications'; 'management turmoil is not enough'; multi-program/production outlets require some discussion of each separately; limits due to severe bias have to clearly define what the bias is, and examples, etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:08, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Comment - If this is speedily closed for TOOSOON, I think a warning should still be placed at WP:RSPS that recent changes would suggest we look for an additional source for anything political. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:07, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

  Seconded. RedDeadGuy (talk) 20:14, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

• Conclude this subsection and let this RFC run its course – Apparently, as ActivelyDisinterested said, it's too late to speedily close, so continuing the proposal to speedily close doesn't help much except... expressing emotions merely. George Ho (talk) 20:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• Agree. Conclude this subsection and let this RFC run its course. As the person who opened this sub-section, I don't have a problem with closing this section, based on the arguments that have been presented. I guess we are stuck with a running RFC until it's over. So, any volunteers feel free to close this section, imho. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:18, 24 June 2026 (UTC)
• I concur. Let this RfC run its course. RedDeadGuy (talk) 22:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is one closer enough?

One uninvolved closer should thoroughly and completely evaluate the whole thread. Practically, however, this would be very time-consuming for an average closer, and a closure at this rate may happen very late, i.e. some time after a latest comment. In other words, the longer we await an uninvolved closer, the rarer an uninvolved, neutral solo closer may be anymore, IMO. —George Ho (talk) 03:17, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

RfC: ARY News

How should we assess the reliability of ARY News? Gotitbro (talk) 13:42, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

• A) Generally reliable
• B) Additional considerations apply
• C) Generally unreliable
• D) Deprecate

Survey (ARY News)

• Option C/D Building on from the discussion above (#ARY News AI journalist) and suggestions to formally address the reliability of this source through an RfC. With mutiple instances of this source using not only undisclosed LLM-generated content but further deceptively creating fake AI journalist profiles (presented as real) to go along with it, a deprecation or gunrel (generally unreliable) appears apt. I'd be willing to circumscribe this to international coverage and entertainment as suggested by one editor above but comments by others there convince me that deceptive AI usage such as this does not make us extend good faith to any area. Gotitbro (talk) 13:42, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

  ARY News was founded in 2004, so what would the reliability for pre-2022 articles be? SVG-image-maker (talk) 20:33, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

  While ChatGPT became available in late 2022. I don't think a cutoff date like that possible, ready text/content generators have existed ever since SEO has and I haven't seen any reason to believe otherwise here as well. Gotitbro (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

  Have they said when they started to use AI content? Slatersteven (talk) 15:55, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

  Of course not. They don't disclose AI usage at all which is what leads us to this discussion. Gotitbro (talk) 17:43, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

  So we canot have a cutoff point until before the use of AI globally. Slatersteven (talk) 11:10, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

• option C as we do not know what is and is not AI-generated, so we do not know how many of its great reporters are using (or actually are) AI. Slatersteven (talk) 14:13, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

• Option C/D - Per my comments in the previous discussion, any identified repeated LLM use and beyond that creating fake AI reporters taints everything. There is no ability to trust them to have any editorial standards as a result. Rambling Rambler (talk) 15:49, 21 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option C. Not only are they using LLM slop, they are trying to hide it. Cortador (talk) 10:36, 22 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option C. (Summoned by SodiumBot). No apparent apology or indication this was an isolated incident. Generated content seems to be their current strategy. So we cannot generally rely on this source. It’s a somewhat longstanding source that predates LLMs so if we could scope the GUNREL to a recent period we could perhaps continue to use the older articles. Can we tell if there has been any recent change in owner or chief editor? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:34, 23 July 2026 (UTC)
• Option C The reports of undisclosed AI-generated content/AI-altered audio clips and concerns about editorial oversight and transparency are a significant concern. Even with a major news outlet like this, those issues make it difficult to assess which content has received adequate editorial review. I think a generally unreliable rating is appropriate until and unless there's evidence the problems have been addressed. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:41, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Discussion (ARY News)

@Newslinger, M.Billoo2000, ActivelyDisinterested, Cortador, Willthorpe, and Slatersteven: pinging participants from the discussion above. Gotitbro (talk) 13:42, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

@Rambling Rambler: Forgot to ping. Gotitbro (talk) 14:24, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Is this snow close time? Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

General question on RS

Directed here from another Talk Page. I can't seem to find "yea" or "nay" on the following sources, Diario AS, Wales Online and News.com.au. A quick "engine search" claims that the former two are RS and that the latter is a "base-by-base". The WP list doesn't include them. Thanks in advance. Maineartists (talk) 13:48, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

News.com.au is a tabloid news site run by Murdoch's News Corp Australia. In my view, its journalism is on par with that of Sky News Australia and Fox News, so it should not be considered a reliable source. A regular alternative is The Australian, which has a similar political alignment and is also owned by News Corp Australia, but is not a tabloid, and its journalism is viewed as being of a higher standard.

Wales Online is a local news paper, so unless other evidence is presented in a discussion here, it would be considered generally reliable. Prior discussion in 2019 seems to say the same. Though personally, I would be careful, as the presentation of some of their articles has the indicators of a tabloid.

Diario AS I can't comment on as I have no knowledge of it. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:34, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

A LOT depends on what you are trying to verify by citing these sources… context matters. Blueboar (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I've found Diario AS reliable. We use it a lot for football articles so most of my experience is with that, but they have paid, full-time journalists by region. I find that they don't report rumors or hearsay and stick to factual claims, but either way we advise editors to exercise caution for transfer news since those can change quickly. Diario AS also do a lot of historical overview reports and I've found them helpful when cross-checking their facts elsewhere. I've reached out to them before via their contact page to ask if they allow guest posts and they do not so they have an editorial team that protects that (this is excluding op-eds which they do allow). Morogris (✉ • ✎) 23:42, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Diario AS Generally reliable for sports news especially football. Staticspector (talk) 18:04, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

globaldatabase.com

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

User reported the use of http://globaldatabase.com at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Vandalism_of_country_category_articles about an old incident where a spammer is alleged to have added it to articles. (Most of these additions were removed soon after they were added in December 2025–February 2026.) However, it is alleged that the site uses AI-generated content, which would warrant removal of the remaining external links. It is used in about 50 articles. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:35, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

From the user contributions it certainly looks like spam, but is there anything to back up the AI allegation? They, again least, claim some respectable customers (AWS/SAP). So it would be a little surprising if they're fudging their reports. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:01, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

It does look spammy as it sells reports to businesses. It takes/scrapes from government databases like Companies House, so use as a source is essentially as a primary source - which isn't great, especially for living people, e.g. John Teeling. I think sourcing a birthdate to this database goes against WP:BLPPRIMARY. Fences&Windows 22:11, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Does it seem AI-generated to you (or that some of the material it scrapes is clearly AI-generated)? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:03, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The John Teeling reference also appears to fail verification, as it doesn't appear to include his birthdate at all. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:13, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

• I clicked on the website--I wouldn't be surprised if it used LLM generated content but either way the first thing that pops up is an add asking you to pay because a certain number of other companies have already to me this just seems like straight up spam and shouldn't be used either way on Wikipedia. Agnieszka653 (talk) 13:54, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

  Does it deserve the spam blacklist? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:25, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Update all SB Nation fan blogs to WP:GUNREL or at least WP:MREL?

Hello. Consensus for SB Nation fan community blogs is that they may not have serious editorial oversight. Although they operate under the same umbrella editorial guidelines as Vox Media and SB Nation, we have raised questions about whether they actually follow this in practice. It would be good to move these to WP:GUNREL. I saw that all of these fan pages have a submission form for freelancers, which then goes to the fan page mod for review. This is "some" oversight in this process, but not as stringent as other professional media outlets, and many of these writers are volunteers, unpaid, or amateur reporters.

Consensus was established in 2023 (discussion here) and 2024 (discussion here) that SB Nation fan pages should not be used to establish notability, and should be used sparingly when the author can be identified as a subject matter expert.

I'd be open to WP:MREL for non-controversial, factual claims in non-BLP articles too, if anyone else is open to that. They appear to have good game coverages (see here) and historical/statistical overviews (see here), but unsure how other may feel about this. Morogris (✉ • ✎) 19:28, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

These are covered by WP:BLOG, SB Nation have no real editorial control over them (see the previous discussion in the archives). Some of them might be usable as an exception due to WP:SPS/WP:USEBYOTHERS, but otherwise they should be considered generally unreliable. I'm not sure we need any stronger consensus than prior discussions, is there se new discussion or disagreement that would make it necessary?
I've removed RFC from the section title, as this isn't a WP:RFC, and it will only cause disruption. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:12, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

The thing is, SB Nation does show the red highlight when adding it as a ref, but the other blog pages do not, and editors may not be aware of this unless they see it. I certainly wasn't aware of them until I did some digging on my own. Not sure if this is the right place to request that change for the dozens of fan pages they have. Morogris (✉ • ✎) 20:25, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

The scripts that highlight sources aren't controlled by this noticeboard, even if the editors who do maintain those scripts may take into account what is said here. If an SB Nation blog appears at a different url it's still covered by consensus about SB Nation blogs. We don't have to have a discussion about every new url, as the reliability relates to the source not where the source is found. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:19, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Where can I go to request that those URLs be highlighted? Many editors do not appear to be aware that these fan communities are owned by SB Nation since it is not obvious when looking at it and the sources look professional to the untrained eye. At least having it highlighted would make some editors look into it. Trying to understand if the consensus for that should be WP:GUNREL or at least WP:MREL too. Morogris (✉ • ✎) 18:07, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Can a species that has not had a conservation status assessment by the IUCN be marked down as "unassessed"

Hello all, there is a discussion around the article Austrovenus stutchburyi. It has been suggested to add to the infobox the IUCN assessment of "unassessed". The issue is that because it isn't assessed, there's nothing to reference for doing so, which creates a bit of a loop. I'm leaning towards not adding this to the article, but wanted to see peoples opinions on this.

Many thanks. AxonsArachnida (talk) 09:23, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Undue issue, not RS. Slatersteven (talk) 09:33, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't know the general sentiment about the reliability of SeaLifeBase, but they say that Austrovenus stutchburyi is "Not Evaluated" by the IUCN. So they could be used to verify that the IUCN haven't assessed the species. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:50, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Going through their advice for how information can be added (requesting people get their data published in journals so it can then be added to the database), that it asks that people citing the database cite it to two specific named editors (M. L. D. Palomares and D. Pauly, both scientists within Marine Biology), that it is operated and hosted by the University of British Columbia, are indicators that we like to see. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:19, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

It's original research to say it is unassessed and undue if not reported as such by the IUCN or reliable secondary sources.

Bias can be put into articles by the selective choice of facts and the emphasis they are given, which is a reason UNDUE exists. TFD (talk) 15:58, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Reliability of Clodfelter

User:Acrkiyyy has replaced secondary academic casualty estimates in the infobox of Shimabara Rebellion with the term "Unknown" and continues to reject the inclusion of Micheal Clodfelter's estimate of 70,000 Shogunate casualties (p. 62) based on personal skepticism of its accuracy. (See discussion) Fróis (talk) 21:06, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

'Personal skepticism' isn't necessarily an invalid reason to reject a source: indeed one of the purposes of this noticeboard is to apply our own judgement as to the reliability of sources. I don't think we are going to be able to arrive at a sensible decision without more input: I suggest you notify the participants in the dispute of this thread, and ask that they explain their perspectives. The source itself is accessible online (), but beyond confirming what it says ("Total Edo losses in the campaign were 70,000 killed, wounded, or dead of disease.") it's hard to assess much. I note however that it has been suggested on the article talk page that the book exagerates casualty numbers: if there are sources which make the same assessment of the book, scepticism might well be merited. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

To add to the above, I'd recommend reading Clodfelter's own 'A note on statistics' on pages xxi and xxii, where he makes it clear that there are inherent difficulties in arriving at such numbers, starting with a statement that "This volume may contain inaccuracies." The book is very much an overview of a huge topic (global casualties in warfare, 1492 - 2015), and I'd have to suggest isn't the best source to base figures around - it might be preferable to give no figures rather than rely on a brief passage from an author with no obvious period/location-specific academic credentials. Are there no Japanese-language academic sources available? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:24, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

The New Arab

The New Arab claimed that Israel was using bombs disguised as soccer balls in Lebanon.

They failed a fact check by Funk, the youth-oriented service of the German public broadcaster. While failing a singular fact check is not per se an indication of unreliability, I am concerned that the way it happened is not aligned with good editorial practices:

a) the journalist seems to have taken the picture from a third party without verification, and the journalist and the third party can’t seem to get their story straight

b) they refused to respond to the fact checker when the specific source was requested

c) they did not issue a correction (link)

Are there any other instances? FortunateSons (talk) 16:20, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Do we deprecate a source due to one error? Do they have a history of errors?

Does anyone else beyond these Funk people dispute that article? — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 16:28, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

No, we don’t, but we do reduce the reliability of a source if the error is evidence of systemic issues or if it’s part of a pattern (which does not necessarily mean depreciation, but could also mean not using anything from this author, on this topic, or applying other additional considerations).

They failed at least one other fact check by Misbar here.

I haven’t found another source, but Funk (and other German public broadcasters) are considered to be generally reliable. Is there any evidence against this specific piece? FortunateSons (talk) 16:55, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Nowhere in the article does New Arab claim that Israel used bombs disguised as soccer balls. They report two quotes by people who make that claim, and report that Israel has been accused of doing so. The most explicit statement theh make is "A suspected unexploded cluster bomb shaped like a small football has been reported in southern Lebanon", and from the pictures it does appear to be roughly football shaped. Although even then they say they can't independently verify the image.
News reports can only be used to verify what they actually say. New Arab here are reporting on the claims and statements of third parties, not making statements of there own. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:03, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

This exact article has come up before as part of a discussion about a different source, see archive 519. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:08, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

That’s a good find, thank you. So the article could be cited for the attribution to officials/activists, but not to say that the New Arab claims that as a suspicion/fact? FortunateSons (talk) 17:13, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Yep, you could use it to say that someone has made those claims but not that the New Arab are making the claim or that the claim is true. You could say that the New Arab reported claims that Israel had used football shaped cluster bombs, but nothing more. Newspaper are generally very careful in the language they use. If they attribute a report or claim to someone else, then they're doing that deliberately. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:52, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense, thank you. Can it still be considered for questions of WP:WEIGHT for the main claim, or only for the reported statements? FortunateSons (talk) 17:55, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

It would give WEIGHT to the inclusion of the allegations, but not that Israel deliberately disguised cluster bombs as footballs. New Arab are only reporting the former not the latter. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:04, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Okay, thank you very much FortunateSons (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

the New Arab reports that there is a claim on social media that a photo shows an Israeli bomb disguised as a soccer ball in Lebanon but does not actually claim it in its own voice. additionally, New Arab states that it could not independently verify the photo. if that counts as unreliable, then we would have to categorize a lot of news sources as unreliable because they often report claims while noting that they could not confirm them. (e.g. )

the Funk website is factchecking a social media influencer named Ullas_momlife, not New Arab. Funk notes that: "'But for toy camouflage, she [Ullas_momlife] only sends us the "New Arab" article instead of a receipt, which we also have in the video - which even says that the accusation could not be verified.'

The Misbar article you linked says that New Arab "initially posted false images of the strike". if you click on the linked New Arab article, the photo is no longer there, so it seems they followed correct editorial procedure and took it down. Rainsage (talk) 17:28, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree on the target of the fact check, but it does state by proximity that the claim in the article is at best unverified and not particularly plausible. Primarily, I don’t like a) + b) when it comes to transparency of sources and journalistic conduct, although neither of those directly impact reliability. But yes, as @ActivelyDisinterested stated above, they did not put it into their own voice.

For Misbar, I can’t see a correction being issued, just an undisclosed removal, but that might be the mobile view of their website, which isn’t great. FortunateSons (talk) 17:45, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

The New Arab article questioned by Misbar is still up. They removed an image that turned out to be fake, but didn't take down the article itself. They don't appear to have noted the remove of the image, but they did then publish an article calling out the fake images. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:02, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree with ActivelyDisinterested. This is generally an excellent source and in this case they seem to have behaved in a mostly exemplary way apart from not noting the correction. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:09, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Elevation of an otherwise fact failed claim is still an issue and not a good look User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:41, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

If we take issue with news sources that repeat attributed claims that turned out be false, we'll have an issue with every sources that ever cited Donald Trump or other other serial liars. Cortador (talk) 12:16, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I came across some inaccuracies in the New Arab when I was looking for sources on the 2025 ban of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Birmingham. In their 30th November piece, they said In October, Dutch police related to their British counterparts that "significant numbers of Maccabi fans were actively involved in demonstrations and confrontations", adding that more than 200 of the club's travelling fans are linked to the Israeli army - a force accused of committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Dutch police also highlighted that some 500-600 of the fans were "experienced fighters who were highly organised and co-ordinated. They were intent on serious violence and were not afraid of fighting with police".

When the New Arab published a piece attributing quotes that originate from a British police dossier to the Dutch police, the Dutch denial had already been widely reported and the British police force was under investigation. Dutch police continued to deny not only giving this report to the WMP, but that the information quoted was accurate at all.

The New Arab went on to publish the same claim again weeks later. By this time the West Midlands Police had been recalled to Parliament for giving misleading evidence to MPs on their first appearance about this issue (which they had to apologise for when they were caught).

In neither case has the claim that the Dutch police passed this information to West Midlands Police been corrected or qualified in the respective online articles. I could see an argument that credulously repeating WMP's account the first time is no worse than what many news outlets regularly do. By the second time the WMP's credibility had been so publicly and comprehensively shredded and this issue had been reported in so many mainstream and generally reliable sources that their willingness to make a contentious factual claim in their own voice on this kind of evidence should be a problem for us. I'd say WP:MREL with a note of caution for contentious claims.

In addition, the Qatari funding situation should make us question situations in which they may not be WP:INDEPENDENT. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:38, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Masters thesis on Freakbeat

Hello, I have questions about the reliability of this thesis. It's published from a university and the supervisors are relatively notable academics in their field. It's also crucially the only piece of academic writing on freakbeat that I have been able to find whatsoever. It covers key details on the sonic features and cultural context of the genre that are practically impossible to find elsewhere. I've used it very sparingly in my recent edit of the page however the initial version which got reverted had it used much more extensively. Most of the changes I've made since then are improvements, but the two areas I'm most concerned about are the details and specificities on the performances and production techniques, and on the underground cultural context the music is situated in.

In cases like this where there is truly no other information available (I've spent the entire past few days doing this) would this source count as reliable enough? It's a niche subject so absence of reproducible information doesn't necessarily equate to a lack of consensus, more likely a lack of academic interest. Can I get any guidance on this? Sleambean (talk) 16:49, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Per WP:THESIS, Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. Can you find cites to it? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:53, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

We had a somewhat long discussion on that somewhere but I can not remember where, @GeogSage: was involved and may remember. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 12:12, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I think that was at the Village pump, but I'm not sure which specific page. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 12:17, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it was. Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 80. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:47, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

If the only piece of academic writing you can find on something is a thesis, then it probably isn't notable. I really think Wikipedia policy is too relaxed when it comes to thesis as it is, they are not really the kind of source we should be using and are essentially self published (even though some people will argue till the heat death of the universe that they aren't. The University does NOT act as a traditional publisher, and does not take any responsibility for the content of a thesis). GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 12:20, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

As a person who has written a master's thesis, I wouldn't rely on one, unless it has made a significant contribution to a field Ar1201u1 (talk) 23:02, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

World population review

The website World Population Review has come up on the article for Superpower, specifically their list World Superpowers 2026. Based on looking into it, it seems like a data aggregator that provides commentary based on the data they have collected. Websites are not the best source, so individual claims have been cited separately, but the list is useful as it has everything in one place. There has been a dispute on the page for months, and one new claim is that this source is not reliable. On Media Fact Check, it appears as least bias, mostly factual (according to Media Bias/Fact Check, due to the occasional use of poor sources), and highly credible. Again, not the best source, but better then some I've seen on Wikipedia in terms of secondary sources that are not peer-reviewed. Is there a consensus on World Population Review not being reliable for these kinds of claims I'm missing somewhere, or is it safe to use? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 12:36, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

The second source at the bottom of the page is Wikipedia's article on Potential superpower, so WP:CIRCULAR. It's not possible to tell which parts were or weren't based on Wikipedia, so use the other sources they list instead. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:46, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

(ec) Firstly, what constitutes a 'superpower', and what criteria can be used for ranking, is subjective. Accordingly, we shouldn't be using any source to assert such things as fact: they need to be attributed. As for the World Population Review, while it may be useful as an aggregator of demographic data, I can't see any obvious reason why we should see it as having any specific subject-matter expertise on superpowers, and I note that the 'World Superpowers' page cites Wikipedia amongst its sources, which likewise makes its use questionable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:05, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! The main issue is how to approach the topic of contemporary superpowers. There are a lot of sources discussing individual entities, but not as many that are taking a high level approach comparing multiple, which creates an issue of lots of verifiable opinions on the matter and not a lot of authority on what opinions to include. You can see Talk:Superpower for more about this. Fair warning, it has been a very active discussion for the past few months. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 13:29, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I would look at using academic handbooks and encyclopedias from the big name academic publishers, as they would likely be trying to take a broader and longer outlook on the topic, instead of individual case studies.

Choosing to limit a search to the past five years, two immediate potential RS are:

• Supernovas: How Survivals of Empires Impact on Geopolitics in The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics (2024)
• Superpowers and Great Powers in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (2021)

Looking for other such sources would then allow a basic analysis of what countries come up repeatedly and the assessments of them in this materials, which can guide us on which to include specific mention and discussion of within the article. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:29, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I believe we are already citing Superpowers and Great Powers, Supernovas: How Survivals of Empires Impact on Geopolitics is paywalled, I'd need an inter library loan and I'm not sure it's worth it based on the abstract not mentioning "superpower". The issue is that "basic analysis" is WP:OR per WP:PRIMARY policy #4. This has been a very frustrating article for me the past few months. I'm a geography professor, I have a few lectures on international power relationships I give for classes, and have deployed my research resources to try and comb from various angles. I've found that all conclusions on this matter, including what constitutes a superpower in the first place, are opinions, and that multiple reliable sources sit hold opposing opinions on multiple states/supranational organizations. People with a POV on what is or is not a superpower can easily find sources to push that POV, which leads to pretty serious content disputes. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 15:40, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

The "basic analysis" is "does this source mention country A as a super power", and "how many sources say country A is a super power" which is very much within our purview to do. Or have the policies and guidelines changed to where we now can't say if a source makes a statement or not, and that we are no longer allowed to determine due weight of content for articles? As to the notion of primary sources, there is a reason I suggested using handbooks and encyclopedias, and that is because these are explicitly not primary sources. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 16:40, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

As a note specifically on "Superpowers and Great Powers", yes it is cited, once, in the lede, for the fact there is no universally determined qualifier for what a super power is. It is not used at all for any of the listed super powers in the article, where multiple of them are discussed in "Superpowers and Great Powers". -- Cdjp1 (talk) 16:51, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I it's inclusion was a recent addition I made, it needs to be mined further for content. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:59, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

"Do Not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." A Systematic review is the formal type of research that would count the sources and conclude what the academic consensus is, and these are Original Research. Unfortunately, we have multiple reliable sources that take different sides of the issue, and trying to come up with a way to "count" them would involve some pretty involved methods for screening sources and ensuring we aren't over/under sampling. We would need a source saying what the majority of sources say, and that could only be attributed to the source. "According to ___, most sources agree ____ is a superpower." It would not allow us to use Wikivoice to say something IS a superpower, especially as we have reliable sources that argue against each case. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:58, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Oh you seem to be labouring under the incorrect assumption that I'm saying we provide analysis and synthesis in the article. Well, it is a good thing isn't it that I did not suggest we do so, just like I did not suggest we use primary sources.

Or if I'm wrong and you are reading the policy to say we can not make such assessment and deductions when discussing sources, as I have been saying, then this noticeboard, alongside all the discussions on the article talkpage need to be shut down. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what the confusion is, just saying we have contradictory sources and lack one that definitively summarizes them and declares a consensus. The source that I opened this for was one of the closest I've been able to find that does to some extent, but the issues brought up with it have caused it to fail. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:33, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Three months of arguing about "Linux family"

At Talk:Linux#I dispute the existence of "Linux" as a family of operating systems the discussion has been going on for over three months without any resolution. Could someone who isn't involved please write up a summary and close the thread? Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:28, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

All I can say about that debate is: Amazing, what a way to waste one's life. I am not involved in that discussion (lucky me) but will not attempt to close it. The REAL point is that whether Linux is a family or semi-family will make no difference to this world. Zero. But the people involved are obviously too excited to agree to that. Is there an administrative way to close that or will it be a Beatles vs The Beatles debate that will show up in NY Times? Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 19:06, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

This was previously discussed on the village pump (Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 211#Is the phrase "the Linux operating system" acceptable in articles, and to what extent may it be modified?). As I said there "Linux operating system" is found everywhere, including it being repeatedly used on the homepage of Linux.com. Whether that's technically correct or not doesn't really matter when so many reliable sources use it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:05, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is not their argument. They argue about Linux "family". I commented there but now will run for the hills to avoid more waste of time. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:34, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

It's coming after you! The Thread That Will Not Die. It is too late for me; I have already lost my soul and my mind and now wander the Internet arguing about Emacs and Vim. Save yourself before it is too late! (Zombie Guy shambles off into the sunset moaning "Rust! Ruuuuuust!!) --Guy Macon (talk) 21:50, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Very good point. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:54, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Again see Linux.com or thousands of other sources, "Linux is a family of operating system". The "Erm technically" that Linux is just the kernel isnt supported by the majority of sources. Yes GNU or whatever, but in common usage it's all Linux.
In other news. London is the capital of the UK but the City of London isn't the capital of the UK, and London isn't a city. Tomatoes are fruit, but bananas are not. Both sides of the moon get the same amount of daylight.
-- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:39, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Well they have only exchanged 21 messages since I suggested to them to cool it. So sources are not going to get attention there. Eventually someone will bust an artery and that debate will end. But it will not be me, or you. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:17, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

The Baffler

• The Baffler (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Not much previous discussion on this, used in a few places.

• Wikipedia search for "thebaffler.com":

Previous RSN discussions:

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 444#RfC: RFE/RL
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 351#Rfc: Jacobin (magazine)

Used to establish that someone wrote something in The Baffler:

• Philip F. Rubio#Career,
• When the Clock Broke

Used as a source on commons:

• File:Map of the Islamic State of Iraq, 20 October 2006.png

Used in talk page and noticeboard discussions:

• Talk:1993 Michael Jackson sexual abuse allegations/Archive 8#Police Raid Paragraph,
• Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Recent questions about the Foundation and US unionization request,
• Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Littler Mendelson

Used as a source in a DYK nomination:

• Template:Did you know nominations/The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography

So is The Baffler a reliable source? Is it OK for establishing that someone wrote something in The Baffler and later wrote a book on the same topic? Would that use tend to establish notability? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:35, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I would think most commercially published sources other than the Daily Mail are suitable as a primary source for establishing someone wrote something in that source. As for notability, case by case basis but more often rests on depth of coverage. Alpha3031 (t • c) 15:50, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I would say Baffler is generally reliable, but I'm unsure about the notability question. The author's work would be primary in relation to the author or his works, and notability usually depends on secondary sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:21, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I'd say generally reliable though I don't see why that would be due weight if cited to an article they wrote for the Baffler itself. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:08, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

• Generally Reliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Reliability of Biographies by Ronald Russell and Alex Medvedev

Two English Wikipedia biographies of living people cite short biographies attributed to Ronald Russell and Alex Medvedev:

• Oopali Operajita cites Oopali Operajita: Biography by Ronald Russell and Alex Medvedev, ISBN 9781979092159. Google Books describes it as a 70-page paperback published on 26 October 2017 by “CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform”: Google Books search.
• Estelle Asmodelle cites Estelle Asmodelle: Biography by Ronald Russell and Alex Medvedev, ISBN 9781975828011. Google Books describes it as an 86-page paperback published on 29 August 2017 by “CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform”: Google Books search.

Google Books provides no preview of either book. The descriptions shown appear questionable at best.

I have been unable to find either book in WorldCat by title or ISBN:

• WorldCat search for ISBN 9781979092159
• WorldCat search for ISBN 9781975828011

Furthermore, I have also been unable to locate independent information establishing the identity, qualifications or relevant expertise of either Ronald Russell or Alex Medvedev, or independent reviews of these books.

There is an additional concern about the apparent publication pattern. Open Library’s author page for “Alex Medvedev” attributes more than 7,000 books to that name, published between 2016 and 2018, frequently co-authored with Ronald Russell. The volume and timing of the publications raise a question about whether these were independently researched biographies or mass-produced/self-published compilations.

I am not suggesting that absence from WorldCat, lack of online access or publication through CreateSpace proves that a book does not exist. My concern is the combined pattern:

• publication through a self-publishing platform without apparent independent editorial oversight;
• no discoverable author credentials;
• no independent reviews or citations;
• no identified library holdings;
• no accessible preview permitting the cited material to be checked; and
• an unusually large number of similarly titled books attributed to the same authors over a short period.

Because at least one of these articles concerns a living person, the books are being used as third-party sources about persons other than their purported authors. I would appreciate views on the following questions:

1. Are these books reliable sources for biographical claims under WP:RS, WP:SPS and WP:BLP?
2. Does their publication through CreateSpace make them self-published sources that should not ordinarily be used for claims about living people?
3. Should the citations be removed and any material relying solely on them removed unless it can be supported by independent reliable sources?
4. Is there any evidence that these books had meaningful editorial review or contain original research rather than material compiled from existing online sources?

This discussion concerns the reliability of these two books and similarly produced Russell-Medvedev biographies. It is not intended to make an unsupported allegation that either named author is fictitious. Frogsandbeans (talk) 02:04, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform is a Wikipedia:Self-published source, so it is generally not reliable. This source is not permissible for use on a Wikipedia:Biography of living persons article Katzrockso (talk) 02:17, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

1. Categorically unusable for living persons, under WP:BLPSPS
2. Unusable for anything, as they have no visible reputation. The examples of their books that I find all have generic covers like the one seen here, a simple pattern with a name on it. There's a strong chance that they are circular; for a while, there were a number of efforts to package Wikipedia articles as print-on-demand books, done in a mass manner (there was even one about me.) Amazon and others eventually banned such items. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:17, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

   I should note that material published through Createspace is not inherently self-published; I myself published the works of others via Createspace. However, if CreateSpace is identified as the publisher, that means that the publisher did not provide their own ISBN but used CreateSpace's free ones, which is not a sign of a serious publishing operation. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:22, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

   Oh, wait, these aren't Wikipedia articles... they're LinkedIn entries. For example, one of their books listed at OpenLibrary is Benjamin Coxworth, Managing Editor, North America at New Atlas (Formerly Gizmag)... and here is a LinkedIn page with just that title. LinkedIn material is not, to the best of my knowledge, licensed under Creative Commons terms like Wikipedia content is. So what we have here is likely copyvio volumes of self-published material... and because we're not using the base publication, we cannot trust it as a transcription. So the facts there might well be sourcable to a LinkedIn page (if it falls under the limitations of WP:ABOUTSELF and there is not significant doubt over the ownership of the LinkedIn page) but sourcing it to the book is not appropriate. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:59, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

   Scrapping LinkedIn would explain how they published 7,000 works in two years. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:39, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Unusable for anything and everything. Cortador (talk) 08:27, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

them (magazine)

Them (magazine) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• main page
• about and staff (no, not that staff)

magazine focused on lgbt matters, such as gay frogs, that time a spider-man movie had a trans actor, and looksmaxxers' totally unintentionally homoerotic shenanigans. already cited in a good few places, so i'm just taking it here to say that there's consensus

as far as my somewhat quick analysis goes, it seems to be extremely, aggressively, overwhelmingly straightforwardly reliable, with the only caveat that i could find being the vague name consarn _{(talk beige) (count ribs)} 13:44, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Just as a point of clarification, no source is "aggressively, overwhelmingly straightforwardly reliable". The best it gets is generally reliable, a quite mild endorsement. A particular report might be completely reliable for the verification of a specific piece of content but no source, no matter the quality of that source, is completely reliable in it's entirety.
The last discussion appears to be from April 2025, editors there seem to have positive opinions of Them.us in general although there were some concerns with how frequently they engage in editorialisation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:05, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Omniglot

Omniglot is a commercial website, published largely (entirely?) by one person, that provides tables of writing systems for numerous languages. It frequently comes up in Wikipedia's language articles as a citation for respective languages' orthographies, as well as for sample texts. At the time of writing, Special:LinkSearch/omniglot.com has 1877 entries.

However, Omniglot's sources that it derives from are often opaque and obscured; it appears to regularly use Wikipedia as one of its primary sources; many of the links it provides are deprecated and parked by phishing scams; and of course it is self-published site (WP:BLOG?) by an author who is certainly not a recognized or well-established linguist on this topic (writing systems).

The source has come up thrice before on this noticeboard:

1. Archive 148#omniglot.com
2. Archive 175#Omniglot online Encyclopedia
3. Archive 301#Omniglot

I am opening the RfC below, as I believe it is due time to have it listed on WP:RSPS. ~ oklopfer (💬) 01:09, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

RfC: Omniglot

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

For the sake of transparency, I must say that this is my first big RfC closure. If my conclusion on this discussion's consensus is off-the-mark, feel free to challenge it. That being said, after thoroughly reading through this discussion, I believe that there is a consensus that Omniglot is generally unreliable.

Editors pointed out a variety of reasons why Omniglot can be considered an unreliable source. It is self-published by a single author, has copied from Wikipedia, and engages in less-than-ideal sourcing. Multiple editors demonstrated that it has included factual inaccuracies, and its author often writes on topics that he is not necessarily an expert in.

That being said, there is consensus that this source does not meet the bar of necessitating deprecation. Editors pointed out that Omniglot operates in good faith, has some sourced pages, and has some legitamate use for researching writing systems when better sources are unavailable. Its author also has actual linguistic credentials, although he has a habit of going beyond them. In general, source deprecation should be reserved for cases of obvious misinformation, propaganda, persistent fabrication, and severe editorial failures; Omniglot, although unreliable, does not meet that level.

The second question presented here is redundant. Usually, once an RfC has established community consensus about a source, it is added to RSP. As such, there is consensus that Omniglot should be listed as generally unreliable on RSP; it should generally not be used when reliable published sources exist. Mit khavershaft, Royz-vi Tsibele🧅 15:22, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

---

There are two questions regarding Omniglot.

Question 1: Is Omniglot a reliable source?

• Option Q1.1: Generally reliable for factual information
• Option Q1.2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option Q1.3: Generally unreliable for factual information
• Option Q1.4: Unreliable to the point that it should be deprecated

Question 2: Should it be listed on WP:Reliable sources/Perennial sources? Per discussion below, this question may be irrelevant; conclusion of this RfC would warrant listing regardless.

• Option Q2.1: Yes, it should be listed in the table under whichever Q1 option has consensus
• Option Q2.2: No, it does not need to be listed in the table
• Option Q2.3: Defer, either unsure or should wait

~ oklopfer (💬) 01:09, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Survey: Omniglot

• Q1.4 & Q2.1: As nom, I believe it is unreliable to the point of needing deprecation, and should be listed in the table. It fails multiple aspects of what makes a reliable source. ~ oklopfer (💬) 01:09, 28 April 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.3. or Q1.4. I have no comment on deprecation, as it is not a process I am familiar with. I have read the page for two languages I am familiar with (Irish, Sicilian). There are inaccuracies, which seem to stem from common misconceptions about the two languages rather than established academic consensus. It claims Sicilian has loanwords from pre-Roman languages we know next to nothinig about, and that the Irish standard (An Caighdeán Oifigiúil) has a pronunciatioin "based on the Connacht dialect". It is exclusively a written standard, so there is no standard pronunciation, but it is a commonly held belief that in its written form, the Caighdeán favours Co. Galway varieties (in Connacht). Teangacha 07:00, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  No comment on the second statement, but is the first statement not true? There is increasing academic consensus on substratum in the Western Indo-European languages, with much work being done on problematic Proto-Italic words for which no Indo-European etymology can be given. Pladica (talk) 22:24, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.3. Particularly concerning is the apparent lack of transparency of sources. I think this should be treated with care as an effectively self-published source. Sławomir Biały (talk) 09:46, 28 April 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.3 and Q2.3 This looks like WP:UGC to me. However I don't want to bloat the RSP list with every single webpage we should not be using. Policy is pretty clear about use of UGC. Let's just assert that people follow extant policy and then, if that doesn't work, we can revisit an RSP list. Simonm223 (talk) 12:22, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  The site's appearance and high location in Google search results are extremely conducive to its use by unsuspecting editors. The site makes no immediate affirmation of UGC, and editors will probably not assume it is such until they get digging in the site. I think this warrants a blacklist and a listing on RS/P. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:24, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  I think a reminder that blacklisting has a very specific meaning on Wikipedia might be in order, because I don't think you're saying this should go on the blacklist, right? ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 18:08, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  I misspoke. I meant deprecating the source, not blacklisting it. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:09, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  I thought so. Just had to make sure. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 18:10, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4. I fully support deprecation for this source. I am currently researching the site and information about it, but far too many unsuspecting editors (including, admittedly myself) have used it to add orthography sections to language articles without knowing its unreliability. I will respond later when I have a clearer assessment of the site. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:07, 28 April 2026 (UTC)
  • I distinctly remember the site also hosts some WP:ONEDAY type content, such as Cyrillic-script writing for Latin-script languages. I think there was an entry on Cyrillicized Slovak, which made it into a Wikipedia article on one of the Cyrillic letters before it was removed. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:10, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

    A basic assessment of the site reveals a glaring WP:SELFPUB. Ager does not appear to be a subject-matter expert whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. I agree with Q2.1 as it is near the top of Google search results and therefore easy for an unknowing editor to use on Wikipedia. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:15, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4 I support deprecation. Self-published with issues as described by others. Much too easily used by well-meaning editors. PersusjCP (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.4 and Q2.1 I was going to go with Q1.3 because at the end of the day this website appears to be pretty much equivalent to just being some guys blog from a WP:RS standpoint. What's the big deal, right? Generally that's what I'd say about most of these kinds of sources, but I read what others said, freshened up my memory on what WP:DEPRECATE actually says deprecation is for and I've ended up thinking that this seems to be a valid deprecation. Deprecation doesn't mean it's impossible to use a source, it just means anyone trying to use one is warned about it. That is mainly to warn unsuspecting editors, and clearly there is some need for it considering searching for articles using it as a source gives you 938 results, including a lot of WP:VITAL articles, including ones going as far up the pyramid as level 3 (top 1,110 most vital articles). That's not good. If there actually ends up being some situation where the site happens to be reliable due to having adequate sourcing then you can just power through the deprecation. Obviously I'm going Q2.1 considering I'm going Q1.4. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 18:04, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  Going to change that to a Q1.3, after further consideration. Deprecation does seem harsh looking back at it, considering it's published in good faith and there are pages that have sourcing good enough to be used. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 08:21, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.3., not sure about the perennial sources list since I don’t know whether the site is notable enough (so Q2.3?). With regard to the writing system I know most about, J.R.R. Tolkien’s tengwar, Omniglot is a terribly unreliable source. I like the site as a curious collection, but it is useless as a reliable source. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:58, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

The site is quite visible in Google search results. I believe this warrants a list on RS/P due to its promiscuity and attractiveness to possible editors. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 18:06, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4 and Q2.1 per nominator and other editors. High unreliability coupled with high visibility is a scary combo. I like octopuses^{talk to me, talk to me} 17:45, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4 & Q2.1: I don't know the site well, but after skimming it for the RfC I have realized that it is maintained by a single person, and it uses Wikipedia and blog-style sites as sources and is not particularly transparent with sources overall. So definitely not a reliable primary or secondary source. I don't see any value in using this as a source. We can just use scholarly publications. Moreover I think inclusion in perennial sources is warranted as the site has been used as a source a lot on Wikipedia already. CVDX (talk) 03:11, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.2 or Q1.3 and Q2.1 While one should certainly keep in mind it is a self maintained and self published site, I would say it should at least be given some lenience in its articles on writing systems. One needs to keep in mind that writing systems are still being created each and every year, and omniglot contains some of the first info online on new scripts, especially in areas where little exists in the way of traditional media such as Africa and the 'Zomia' Region. Many of these scripts have gone on to become notable and get their own articles on the Wiki; Oduduwa for example first appearing on omniglot should one look back at the site's news posts. The site is commonly cited within Unicode documents, including by its advisory councils, perhaps the most important authority worldwide on writing systems. In addition, the author of the site, Simon Ager, holds a position on the advisory council on the endangered alphabets network, further giving him credence (at least in my eyes). At the very least I think deprecation is too extreme, given what I've said, but certainly a notice on the reliable sources would be well advised. Pladica (talk) 23:45, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

  Most of your arguments are correct, but the sentence One needs to keep in mind that writing systems are still being created each and every year, and omniglot contains some of the first info online on new scripts, especially in areas where little exists in the way of traditional media such as Africa and the 'Zomia' Region is further evidence that Omniglot would be unreliable, as the information would not be verifiable. That would be a circular reasoning argument a la "Omniglot is a reliable source because the information contained in it comes from a reliable source (Omniglot)." I like octopuses^{talk to me, talk to me} 00:04, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  Are any earlier, locally produced documents for those scripts and local media covering them available and far more reliable than Omniglot? Were the Unicode documents rejected proposals for including certain new characters? 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 00:12, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  For the first question it depends, "those scripts" consist of dozens of scattered scripts each with their own histories, generally if there is documents and news coverage it would be offline only. Proposals including omniglot sources have generally been accepted (Old Uyghur, Sora Sempang, Kirk Miller's various proposals) and those that haven't were rejected for reasons outside of using Omniglot Pladica (talk) 01:47, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  Just because these sources use it doesn't make it reliable. Have you addressed the concerns brought up about its factual acuracy and apparent WP:CIRCULAR, WP:ONEDAY, etc. content and lack of citing sources? 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 02:34, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  WP:CIRCULAR doesn't really apply to minority scripts since they either do not have articles already or postdate their omniglot counterparts as I have mentioned, and yes, I would consider it to be factually reliable in this area. WP:ONEDAY is just an essay and not something I'd really consider even applying for something like minority writing systems. Pladica (talk) 05:16, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  I meant generally, not just restricted to minority scripts. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 13:02, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  Perhaps you misunderstand my point, I'm not arguing about omniglot as a general source, I think generally for languages there is more than enough resources available in academia to cover them without ever needing to use omniglot as a source. Writing systems however are a different story, there is much less work available to editors, especially as many of these scripts are young and in areas beyond the reach of traditional media. On top of that, Simon Ager clearly is seen as respected and reliable within the larger community of writing system research as one can see from his work in Unicode and the Endangered Alphabets network, and so I think as a clause omniglot is fine to use in this subfield in lieu of better sources. Pladica (talk) 22:30, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Pladica Very late reply, but I think it should be used only to establish the existence of these scripts. Even this is tenuous, however, as it hosts obvious WP:ONEDAY content, where some random person can make up a writing system for any language and get it hosted, like this Cyrillicization of Slovak, which, if I rember correctly, was actually cited in Izhitsa. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 17:59, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, but stuff like the modern creation of new orthographies for Western, well established languages occur in a very separate context than that of new advent writing systems for minority tongues; stuff like the Slovak Cyrillicization you linked is very explicitly the work of a few amateur language enthusiasts for nothing but simple fun, the page is very blatant about this its description. Minority writing systems however occur in a much more "natural" sense, largely being created in religious and/or communal contexts. These differences are clearly laid out enough in Glottolog's descriptions on each page, but yes, clearly you have occasional naive editors seemingly not reading thoroughly enough and making uninformed edits. This is why I think the reliable sources listing should make the distinction between these types clear, with articles on novel minority writing systems being Glottolog-okay while the other parts of the site are highly discouraged. Pladica (talk) 08:25, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

  I'm asuming you're confusing Glottolog with Omniglot, but I suppose the latter could be used solely to prove the existence of a minority script when there is no other evidence, although the degree of reliablity in Omniglot prohibits the inclusion of more than a stub. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 17:06, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, my mistake, very similarly named sites serving somewhat similar purposes. And correct, that is what I have been arguing; it is a suitable source for these topics. Pladica (talk) 06:01, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

  How then, do you distinguish these scripts from something someone made up one day and had it posted on the website? 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 13:53, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

  Because as I have already explained multiple times, the descriptions given by the website are very clear in what each script is and who created it. And again, these minority scripts develop differently than simple novelty scripts made for fun, I don't know why you keep conflating the two very separate categories. Pladica (talk) 03:38, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

  Scoring big scoops isn't a priority of ours. We can afford to await until more reliably published info comes along. Largoplazo (talk) 00:18, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  Sure, but I think it's important to recognize the gap in literature on minority groups, scripts and languages compared to those of the mainstream and that we as an encyclopedia should recognize that and give some leniency to these communities as a result, many of these still have next to no work on them even when they widely catch on. Pladica (talk) 01:55, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. I think WP:RSN should be about disputed use in a Wikipedia article, so I googled site:en.wikipedia.org omniglot and looked at the first 5 answers. First was Omniglot, and it should be okay to cite Omniglot re Omniglot. Second was List of constructed scripts, Omniglot was in the "External links" not a cite. Third was File:Quikscript alphabet with phonetic transcription of the characters.gif -- Omniglot was presumably being used because it explicitly allows non-commercial copying, so is convenient. Fourth was File:Universal Declaration of Human Rights - mlt - Art1.ogg -- again, convenient. FIfth was Old English Latin Alphabet, and again Omniglot was in "External links" not a cite. From this sample, I gather that there was no reason to start an RfC about banning -- and I use that word since I've seen references to sites destroyed solely because there had been an RfC mentioning deprecating. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:01, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

  Plenty of sources cite Omniglot as an actual source for articles instead of linked in the external link section. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 20:05, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Peter Gulutzan I wouldn't have brought this to RfC at all if there wasn't a significant problem with Omniglot being used as an inline citation on articles. You can see such examples quite clearly with Special:Search/insource:omniglot (rather than a Google search), where a plethora of search results show the website provided within <ref> tags. ~ oklopfer (💬) 20:24, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

I said "I think WP:RSN should be about disputed use in a Wikipedia article", you don't claim that my randomly-chosen examples are disputed or a significant problem. Even if you gave examples from your side showing that a cite was wrong, I'd wonder what the argument on the article's talk page was. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:30, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Your examples are problematic, as many articles do use Omniglot as an actual citation to use to add content onto the page. The link above provides enough examples of this, 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:36, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

In your initial comment you said they were the first five results from a Google search; if that is the case, then they are not randomly selected. This was brought to the board for the precise reasoning you are claiming it should be used for: usage of the source within articles (as a citation). Turning a blind eye to those numerous examples to maintain your original point does not make a good case, in my opinion.

As an aside, I find the argument that deprecation will destroy the site's integrity rather overblown, and should also not be a criteria for maintaining it. Should the RfC pass in favor of listing it on perennial sources, it will almost certainly be stated that it is a self-published site which has opaque sourcing for its claims, and is therefore not reliable for our uses. None of that would be inaccurate, nor necessarily damaging in my opinion, only informative and cautionary. If recognition of those qualities "destroys" the site, that should be glaring evidence that it is problematic and corroboration that it should not be used as a source here. ~ oklopfer (💬) 22:12, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

The increased reliability of Wikipedia brought about by controlling the use of poor quality sources has been praised by external reporting, and the community seems quite happy with the process. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:29, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

• 1.3 or 1.4: Omniglot is neat but is basically a self-published blog. The author is a linguist but the website is done to hobby project standards and isn't trying to be rigorous. Most uses appear to just be external links at the bottom of obscure articles anyway. Deprecation seems unnecessary. No opinion on question 2. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:26, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

  See above comment for why this source should absolutely be deprecated. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 20:33, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

  @LWG see the search results I just linked in my above comment, as the characterization Most uses appear to just be external links at the bottom of obscure articles anyway is certainly not the case. It has frequent uses as a direct citation (not an external link), and many are definitely not obscure articles. Even then, if they were only 'obscure' articles, usage as a citation within them should not be ignored because of their low visibility. ~ oklopfer (💬) 20:32, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

  I see, yes the citations on the first two articles there Romani people and Benjamin Franklin both look problematic. Thanks for the link. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:58, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.2, Q2.2: Clearly the work of an individual or small group, and we should seek specialized sources for individual languages. Many pages are heavily based on wiki itself. As a longtime editor of Semitic wiki pages, I can tell (for example) that the Aramaic page took its Imperial transcription from an old version of our Aramaic, which was unfortunately pure invention by an editor. GordonGlottal (talk) 15:17, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.4 and Q2.2 per above. Effectively appears to be a UGC, and the fact it directly sources from Wikipedia can make things circular, therefore it's not appropriate for use. As for Q2, it doesn't appear to be massively used, so no need to further bloat RSP. The Kip ^(contribs) 18:39, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.4 and Q2.2 SPS, but not rigorous enough to be up to our standards, as far as I can tell. No need to clog up the perennials; deprecating it will make it clear easily enough and it's not used enough. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 01:31, 24 May 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.2 and Q2.2: The success and general excellence of this website in fact shows the difficulties of applying hard-and-fast rules on Wikipedia against self-published sources over-strictly. It was edited by an M.A. linguist who has worked on it for 28 years. It was archived by the Library of Congress, listed as a reference resource by university libraries (UBC, McMaster, no doubt others), and reviewed in Technical Services Quarterly. Indeed, being a labor of love that has required decades to compile, it is the sort of body of work that could—yes, after some more editing—easily be made into a published work. That is, if it were not free. Generally, Wikipedia should not be in the business of second-guessing the on-the-ground decisions of editors. Sometimes, the Omniglot entry might be among the best available sources for some piece of information; we should not make it harder for it to be cited in that case, if the editors decide that is for the best. Sometimes, other sources might be better; in short, I agree with User:Peter Gulutzan on this. As User:Pladica argued, for some writing systems, Omniglot is sometimes the only available documentation, so that preventing use of Omniglot would actually harm small language groups. As to User:GordonGlottal's argument regarding Aramaic, if citogenesis errors were made grounds on which to block sources, consider the many, many greenlit sources that would have to be blocked. In short, it would be a terrible decision for Wikipedia to declare this resource as completely unusable. Larry Sanger (talk) 16:39, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
  • Information from Richey, E. (2024). Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems & Languages. Technical Services Quarterly, 41(4), 393–394. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2024.2396245: Professional library science journal addressing the precise question you are addressing in this thread, namely, the reliability of the resource. Rating, 5 out of 5. Said to be "a very useful resource for any cataloger wishing to identify the language or writing system of a text". As to writing systems pages, the reviewer notes: "Sources are cited for all information on the page, and each page ends with a list of links to keyboards, transliteration tools, and other language learning resources." Larry Sanger (talk) 16:39, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

    the reviewer notes: "Sources are cited for all information on the page... Despite the reviewer's claims, I do not see such source attributions on an enormous number of pages. ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:04, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  Sometimes, the Omniglot entry might be among the best available sources for some piece of information; we should not make it harder for it to be cited in that case, if the editors decide that is for the best. This is a pure case of circular reasoning; this argument presupposes that Omniglot is in fact reliable, when that reliability is the exact thing being disputed. I kind of understand the angle you're going for, but the fact remains that Omniglot still has multiple issues (enumerated by oklopfer and others) that create original research and verifiability concerns. I like octopuses^{talk to me, talk to me} 03:47, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  No, it's not circular. Circular reasoning would be arguing that OMnigot is reliable because it's reliable. What I stipulate is not that it's reliable but that it might be among the best available sources for some piece of information. That's quite different from a reliability claim. I understand your point about it having issues, but all resources have issues (including many, many of the greenlit sources). That alone does not vitiate the points I raised, which you didn't address. Larry Sanger (talk) 02:27, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4/Q2.1 - Quite literally the definition of a self-published work, stated to be a "one-man operation", and as others have mentioned it's a passion-project. Fair concerns raised about it basically using Wikipedia as a source (never a good sign personally). Given it's come up multiple times, probably worth having it as RSP. Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:00, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.2: As LarrySan says, this source is run by a man with a masters degree in linguistics from Bangor University and has academic WP:UseByOthers. I don't think this site is UGC as it states every contribution is sent to this one man's email and reviewed. I don't think this falls under any of the WP:UGC categories.
  I also dispute that the site uses Wikipedia as a source. It clearly delineates between source links and {{further reading}} and every "citing Wikipedia as a source" example I've seen mentioned in this discussion is just a further reading link. Our own external links policy would allow a further reading link to Wikipedia as carved out under ELNO#12, as an open wiki with a history of stability and substantial amount of editors. I searched the site for citing Wikipedia and I only see examples like for attributing the origin of sample text the man has presumably verified; again, as LarrySan mentioned, a Taylor & Francis journal trusts the site. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 02:42, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  Picking off one of the first listed examples on the site's index, Afaka syllabary: the only source listed is the Wikipedia article. Indeed as you say, it is only used for attribution of the sample text (despite the fact that Afaka syllabary § Sample text provides an apparent citation, so it is unclear why that is not instead used as the source), but it is a complete mystery where the rest of the page information is coming from.

  Looking at the sentence "Afaka claimed that he had a dream in which a spirit prophesied that a script would be revealed to him" on this page, we can see what appears to be a rather problematic plagiaristic copying: this 2013 blogpost appears to be the origin of the sentence, and yet it is never mentioned once on the Omniglot page. According to the Omniglot page, it was last edited 13 Oct 2024, and the first Wayback archive of it appeared on 11 Nov 2024, so it is rather safe to say this was indeed taken from that blog post.

  Next, the sentence "In 1915 a Catholic missionary in Suriname, Brother Bernard, saw a man, Afaka Atumisi's brother-in-law Abena, reading a book written in strange symbols" appears to be derived from a 1988 journal entry: JSTOR 41849333. Again, this journal is never attributed. The plagiarism, combined with the failure to reasonably cite origin sources, combined with the citing of Wikipedia for sample texts are compounding issues.

  It is an overstatement to say that a T&F journal trusts the site; the reviewer who published an article within that journal trusts the site, and the reviewer's claim that Sources are cited for all information on the page is easily demonstrably false as just shown, which brings up major concerns about the rest of the analysis. ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:33, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  The "Patili Molosi Buku" appears to be not the easiest to find, and even then, the transliteration and translation work was by whoever added it to Wikipedia. I don't see how using sample texts from Wikipedia is any issue.

  That is the only sentence that seems similar to the blogpost so I don't think it's a far cry to say it was a coincidence, like how we would AGF it if someone added it to Wikipedia. It is a clear and direct way to word the idea expressed by the sentence. The blogpost doesn't contain any information from the Omniglot page—beyond the first paragraph, which only has basic details—either.

  The JSTOR article just covers the same information; none of the language is similar. I don't see why you think it must have come from that source. I agree that the site isn't citing its sources but I don't think that's big enough an issue to make this less than MarginallyRELiable.

  That's the same thing: The author has to submit to the journal's editors for review, who then have to get the article peer-reviewed. I don't think 1.5% of a journal article being blatantly wrong invalidates it as it is clearly written as a small (though significant) detail. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 15:31, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  • It's not just similar to the blog post, it is verbatim the same sentence. Given how the sentence is worded, I think a coincidence is out of question.
  • If you do a web search for "Brother Bernard"+"1915"+"Afaka", there are 4 links that come up besides Omniglot and Grokipedia. It is possible that Omniglot's source is from one of the 3 that is not the 1988 journal article, but all of them presumably ultimately get their information from that journal given how much further back it dates.
  • I am not outright invalidating the review, but given how important of a detail the claim of citing sources is, it questions the reliability even of said review, nevermind the source that it is evaluating.
  • The lack of citing sources for a personal site such as Omniglot is more than enough of an issue in my view to make it less than marginally reliable, so we will have to disagree there.
  • I also want to return to another point you mentioned, as I missed it before: I don't think this site is UGC as it states[1][2] every contribution is sent to this one man's email and reviewed. People sending in info is essentially UGC, and a lone soul reviewing it all is not exactly a good look, especially when that person is not well established to be reliable. Linguistics is quite a large field; Ager having an MA in linguistics does not make him an expert (or even necessarily reliable) in every aspect of the field, and his dissertation had absolutely nothing to do with writing systems, the primary topic of Omniglot (it was on language revival of Manx Gaelic, FWIW). He even states in his bio on the website:

  So I know a lot about some languages, and a little about many others, but would not call myself an expert on any of them.

  ~ oklopfer (💬) 16:47, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

• Yes, I'm saying that it was the only sentence in which anything remotely similar occurs. Afaka claimed that he had a dream in which a spirit prophesied that a script would be revealed to him. is also how I would word this, besides the use of passive instead of active voice, which is common in this kind of writing.
• I still don't see why this would be a problem if true.

I indeed wasn't saying that the degree made him ExpertSPS; it doesn't, for the reasons you mention. Sorry that's what it sounded like. However, it means that what most !voters are saying—that this is a know-nothing UGC circular blog, to exaggerate—is wrong. There is no evidence of errors failing to be corrected. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 12:49, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

• No comment on the first question, but Q2.1 aligns with prior practice on WP:RSP. As this source is notable enough to be covered in a standalone Wikipedia article (Omniglot), is widely linked, and has been previously discussed multiple times, I do not see a reason to deviate from WP:RSPCRITERIA. — Newslinger talk 20:03, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.3 or Q1.4: As someone who used to visit Omniglot a lot, this site contains wayyyyyyyyy too many errors to even be remotely usable. I am not opposed to outright deprecation. Omniglot is the self-published work of a single person (Simon Ager) with pretty much no editorial oversight whatsoever. The overall lack of quality can be seen on many of his pages. For instance, the Omniglot page on the Gamilaraay language is so similar to an older revision of the Wikipedia article , that this is almost certainly WP:CIRCULAR copying. The Omniglot index of writing systems has several serious errors which have never been fixed. For instance, it lists the Indus "script" as if it were an actual writing system, even though many scholars have debated whether it was even writing in the first place. Likewise, it falsely lists the Vinča symbols as a writing system. But the vast majority of scholars don't even think it was writing at all, or at the VERY least, express strong doubts.

After searching Google Scholar, it appears that the creator, Simon Ager, has not published any academic work other than his dissertation. This fails to meet any reasonable criteria of a "subject-matter expert" by a long shot. If Omniglot is the only source to support the existence of a writing system, we shouldn't even HAVE an article on that to begin with. Actual scholarly journals are thousands of times better than that site. SVG-image-maker (talk) 15:21, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Interesting, it seems that Omniglot does make a distinction between writing systems and sets of symbols but doesn't reflect it through neither the name nor the page for the "Undeciphered scripts" ("The following writing systems [...]") category. You can see a distinction in how the ones you mention are questionable have a lede of "A collection of symbols [...]" while the other ones say "A script [...]".

I don't see the similarity you say exists for the page on Gamilaraay. In fact, notice how the set of alternate spellings are quite different. There's also a possibility that for a lot of subjects both Omniglot's entry and the enwiki article took information from Ethnologue. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 01:11, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4 and Q2.1 It's not problematic that Omniglot is self-published, but there are multiple examples in this discussion questioning whether information on the site can be independently verified at all. If it's difficult to determine where claims originated, there's risk of circular verification and that is problematic. Reliable sourcing should make it easier to trace information back to its origin, not harder, and several editors provided examples that suggest that O. may sometimes draw from WP itself. Given that, I think deprecation is appropriate as a warning to editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tioaeu8943 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

  Most online sources (news articles, Encyclopedia Britannica ...) do not tell us from where their claims originate. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 18:02, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.2 & Q.2.2 Bordering on user generated content, given the publishers credentials boarding on being a subject matter expert in the field. I would prefer, since it is a borderline case that other source are also used to go along with Omniglot.com if I were to see it in an article. That said I don't think this site should be black listed either.--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 23:13, 8 June 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.3/Q1.4 – An "encyclopedia"? I still can't believe that WP:TSF and WP:TERTIARYUSE are essays, despite being clearer about using tertiary sources carefully, especially as potential sources. Also, borderline user-generated and discouraged by WP:USERG, not to mention potentially AI-generated or AI-assisted. Also, would be a shame if the consensus doesn't choose Q2.1 (listing the source into the table), which I'm favoring. The lengthy table at WP:RSP#Sources is still essential. George Ho (talk) 05:53, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
• Q1.3/Q2.1: The source may be useful for some non-commercial copying of gifs and images, perhaps even for factual information, provided it is verified. That said, there are quite a few factual errors that other editors have pointed out, so it should be used sparingly. On question 2, I think it makes sense to include this in the list given that it's been discussed three other times on this page and has its own page.Redvelvetvanilaaaaaaaaa (talk) 22:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Q1.2 As users have mentioned above deprecation for an good faith website and publicist seems over the top. One thing to note however, is the author admits he's not a linguist and other users have reported finding errors that call into question the reliability of the site. Also as mentioned above universities do list the source as an encyclopedia in its domain. A few examples include, Kansas University, Emory and Iowa. On the other hand one can make the argument that this listing by universities is a general collection and not a strong endorsement which also makes sense. Any use from peer-reviewed or reliable sources that I can find is not few and far between and its questionable whether it would fall under WP:RS. More discussion on this is needed but I don't want to see this site prematurely blacklisted. AadamentAardvark (talk) 11:17, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• Q1.4 and Q2.2 This should be depricated because it is a WP:SPS. However, it should not be listed on the table because I do not think it is an important enough or widely used source to warrant it. If anything, we can create a redirect shortcut policy to the closer's decision on the discussion. Perhaps something like WP:OMNIGLOT. I doubt there is another policy that is called that haha. Gjb0zWxOb (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion: Omniglot

Use the § Survey: Omniglot section above to comment on preferred options. Discuss other aspects here. ~ oklopfer (💬) 01:09, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Note that Simon Ager is has a Masters in Linguistics from Bangor University , so it is not true that he does not have credentials in the field. --Slp1 (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  @Slp1 ResearchGate only says September 2008 - September 2009; are you sure Ager completed the program?

  (I've struck the nor do they have such credentials line from my intro either way; even if Ager does have a linguistics degree, they are still certainly not well-established, and it is still a self-published site, which is the crux of that point; it also seems like Ager's studies did not focus on writing systems, per the dissertation on RG) ~ oklopfer (💬) 02:24, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  Why would you think he hadn’t completed it? Masters in the UK are often a year in length. Ager says he has an MA The dissertation would be the final step and for what it is worth has been cited 21 times according to Google scholar Slp1 (talk) 02:28, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  I am just more used to 2 year programs, so I wasn't sure based on the RG profile. Not questioning Ager's honesty in any way, if their personal profile on Omniglot says so I trust it (somewhat ironically, one of the cases where a self-published source is reliable!). Still, the dissertation has nothing to do with writing systems, it is about Manx language revival. ~ oklopfer (💬) 02:37, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  You should strike that Ager isn't a recognised linguist. While he has only ever published his dissertation, he has been cited, which is what recognition ultimately is. Cortador (talk) 06:18, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  No, not really… almost no one knows Ager's name or work outside of Omniglot. Recognition as a scholar is a prestige which Ager has far from achieved within linguistic circles, and likewise not gained from a singular dissertation with 21 cites. The primary source of recognition that Ager has is through Omniglot.

  Please use this RfC discussion section to talk about the actual questions being raised. Even if Ager had 500 cites on the dissertation, it once again had nothing to do with writing systems. It does not establish a reliable backing for a self published site to be considered usable. ~ oklopfer (💬) 06:31, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  That doesn't mean anything. You could ask people who won the Nobel Prize ten years ago and most people couldn’t give you can answer, even though those would obviously be recognised scientists.

  If you don't wish Ager's supposed lack of credentials to be talked about, you shouldn't have brought it up as an argument. Cortador (talk) 07:10, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  I briefly mentioned it in my lead summary. I'm going to collapse this as an obviously irrelevant pedantic tangent to the RfC questions. What "recognition" means does not amount to anything if it is not on the topic being claimed as expertise. ~ oklopfer (💬) 07:15, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  You considered it relevant enough to use it as a argument. Feel free to remove or strike it if it's so "irrelevant". Cortador (talk) 07:24, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  My choice of the word "recognized" was not an argument, it was simply a statement that Ager is not a well known linguistic scholar outside of Omniglot. There is nothing to strike. Edit warring on a noticeboard is incredibly poor WP etiquette. ~ oklopfer (💬) 07:37, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  And I challenged that, and you are not entitled to chose what part of your argument gets challenged and what doesn't. Cortador (talk) 07:44, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  You didn't challenge whether Ager is well known, you challenged that "recognized" is the wrong word for me to include in my introduction for bringing forward an RfC.

  My explanation for bringing it forward is not an argument being made as part of the RfC, which is why it is above the request. If that is what you are here to debate, you are in the wrong place. There is a reply button below that initial comment if that is what you are looking for.

  This is derailing discussion without engaging in the actual request. Such derailment is harmful to further productive discussion. ~ oklopfer (💬) 08:13, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  If you did not meant to bring that as an argument, you wouldn't have brought it. You are still free to strike it. Cortador (talk) 18:40, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  His work has been cited multiple times by other scholars, so yes, he is a recognized linguist. Maybe not on this topic but that is not what you have written. This is a BLP issue, actually, as Ager is alive and hopefully well. I also suggest you strike it or rephrase. I am also super concerned that you want to hat this and curtail the discussion of this topic. You brought this very serious decision to the community, making claims about a BLP's education/reputation that turn out to be unfounded, and very easily debunked from a simple google search. What other aspects need checking out before people decided? Slp1 (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  A simple google search reinforces my claim of being virtually unrecognized (as in, not well known) outside of Omniglot, contrary to your claim. 21 citations on a single dissertation does not establish recognition. Either way, I expect every aspect to be checked and decision be made independently. I'll add "on this topic" to avoid further confusion. ~ oklopfer (💬) 12:45, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• I would like to say that it seems like many pages just take info from wikipedia itself (even when wikipedia is wrong lolololol) 2007GabrielT (talk) 03:53, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  Do you have examples? -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:43, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

  Might be referring to the fact some pages link to Wikipedia at the bottom, in the area that is as close to a source list as the website gets. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 13:33, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

• Just a note. Please do not trust Researchgate. It has a lot of incorrect info and they could not be bothered to fix it. I saw that it claimed that yours truly was associated with a place I had not even heard of. I emailed them 2 or 3 times but received no response. I do not trust them. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:32, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  While I agree that Researchgate isn't a generally reliable source, I think it's unlikely that Ager got so far as finishing his dissertation (which later got cited a few times) but then also failed to complete his degree. Cortador (talk) 07:30, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, he probably got the degree. It would be hard not to get a degree from Bangor if you breath. But l have not looked at his site, so I cannot comment further. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 09:27, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Are there any projects that it would be worth notifying about this discussion? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:17, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  Two: Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages and Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 15:18, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  oklopfer was well ahead of me on this thought, both have already been notified. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:22, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Question 2 is an interesting question, as per the RSP criteria, this has been frequently discussed (three times) (i.e. perennial, adj. 1. frequently discussed) and can be included even without this RfC. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:01, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

  WP:RSPCRITERIA is discussions or a RFC, so when this RFC is closed it would meet the criteria (regardless of the second question). The second question is a bit odd as the inclusion criteria of the list isn't having a RFC about whether to include something. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:30, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

  I raised the question because the inclusion criteria was not entirely straightforward to me. When posting a new topic here, it states that an RfC can only be started after prior discussions, so it felt somewhat contradictory already that it could've been listed following either an RfC, or following the criteria to start an RfC. Given what felt like policy incongruence, I wanted to err on the safe side. Perhaps it is more a question of clarity for myself and confidence from other's survey replies. ~ oklopfer (💬) 16:51, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

  Consensus doesn't need an RFC, so the RSP criteria are either multiple discussions on RSN or a RFC. Separately on RSN you shouldn't start a RFC on a source without it being previously discussed. Those two things are not related to each other. The RSP is a log of discussions on RSN, so there should never be discussions on "should this be added to the RSP?". That makes no sense when you think about it, as the RSP would become a log of discussions about whether discussions should be logged. Discussions on RSN should always be "is this source reliable", whether that source is logged on the RSP is a secondary matter. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:31, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

  Consensus doesn't need an RFC, so the RSP criteria are either multiple discussions on RSN or a RFC. Separately on RSN you shouldn't start a RFC on a source without it being previously discussed. Those two things are not related to each other. This still confuses me and feels very much like they are related. Let's call "multiple RSN discussions" A, "an RfC" B, and "listing on RSP" C:

  If A or B, then C; however, B requires A, so really the existence of B seems irrelevant, since A is always required for C. But that obviously cannot be the case, as B is subject to higher standards and greater scrutiny. So it seems there is some unspoken understanding of which sets of A meet the criteria for C, and others which don't and instead encourage B before C.

  I understand your point about it being a log on the other hand, and why that would make Q2 mostly irrelevant. ~ oklopfer (💬) 17:53, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

  The issue is that you're still mixing listing at RSP with starting a discussion there. A RFC requires prior discussion, Ian entirely unrelated many listing at RSP require a RFC or multiple discussions.
  It's not A, B, and C, rather it's A, B and μ. The criteria here have nothing to do with the criteria at RSP.

  1. If A is a discussion at RSN, and B is a RFC at RSN, then B requires A. On RSN you should start a discussion rather than just jumping to a RFC.
  2. If μ is listing at RSP it requires either multiple A or B. This has nothing to do with the discussion ongoing on RSN, only after discussions on RSN has finished is this relevant.

  The first set of requirements are separate from the second and can't be mixed together, and the purpose of a discussion (or RFC) on RSN should never be to add something to the RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:52, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

  This helped, thank you! ~ oklopfer (💬) 21:36, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• I've made a request on WP:CR for a close. The discussion may get archived while it waits, but if that happens it will be unarchived when it's closed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

References: Omniglot

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ancient Science of Life (journal)

Our article on Shodhana has exactly one citation: Ancient Science of Life., which is an ... interesting ... name for a scientific journal.

That ref has many dubious claims, such as " Severe toxicity of opium can also be reduced by triturating with ginger juice" and "Studies have shown that the toxic constituents are transferred into media rendering the drug nontoxic."

I don'r think this is a WP:RSMED. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:37, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

It does seem to be promotional. Slatersteven (talk) 17:41, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't meet normal WP:RS criteria, never mind WP:RSMED. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:47, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Well it claims to be peer-reviewed; however, it seems to be very rarely cited outside niche publications. And it does seem to have the kind of reputation we would want for Medrs. Slatersteven (talk) 17:50, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Editorials from the journal lay out how it's scope and focus is on how Ayurveda can be used for clinical practice and clinical science. So, an alternative journal for alternative medicine. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 22:09, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

If an 'alternative medicine' works, wouldn't it be 'medicine'?

Genuine question, WP:AGF Ar1201u1 (talk) 22:50, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

"By definition (I begin), alternative medicine (I continue) has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine." - Tim Minchin -- Cdjp1 (talk) 08:49, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Mis type I meant to say does not have a reputation. Slatersteven (talk) 09:36, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

A helpful editor expanded the article a bit, making some unclear concepts understandable. Very useful addition. The reference that they cite is Handbook of Metallonutraceuticals

I am left wondering whether any reliable source for anything related to Shodhana exists.

When searching on this topic, be aware of "Shodhana Laboratories: Where Pharmaceutical Science Meets Artificial Intelligence" ( https://www.shodhana.com/ )which is doing a bang-up job of flooding the Internet with promotional material. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:27, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I doubt the claim of it being peer-reviewed, the website has a “publish with us”. I Googled the journal, seems dubious, website showed a risky warning, and last publication seems to be in 2018. I would say unreliable based on the Duck test. The company publishing the journal seems to be selling ayurvedic products (I am not sure of authenticity of the products either, plenty of quacks around, hard to identify if anything is genuinely Ayurveda) Ar1201u1 (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

So, would fake Ayurveda leave out the Mercury and Lead? Or would that just be homeopathic Ayurveda? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:10, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Love the term “homeopathic Ayurveda”, apt description Ar1201u1 (talk) 11:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Peer reviewed just means reviewed by peers. If you have a quack journal, your peers are quacks. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:33, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree. Avoid it. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:23, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

RfC: Fars News Agency

What is the reliability of Fars News Agency?

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

Fars News Agency is affiliated to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, similar to Tasnim News Agency which was deprecated in 2024 (RfC). There have been some discussions mentioning Fars either by itself (1) or alongside other Iranian state outlets (1, 2, 3). JSwift49 23:12, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Comment: The claim that FNA is run by the IRGC or affiliated with it dates at least back to January of 2022, and yet in more than four years, nobody has managed to find a single source that actually confirms this. Searching for "Fars News Agency" and "Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps" together yields a few results, including mentions in the context of US sanctions on Iran as well as mentions by IranWire and The Jerusalem Post.

However, all of these are from 2026, years after this was added to the Wikipedia article. Until someone presents a source that confirms this affiliation prior to January 2022 (or whenever this was added to the article specifically), I'll assume this is a case of CIRCULAR. Cortador (talk) 07:53, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

About 30 seconds of searching found this BBC guide to Iranian media claiming an affiliation between Fars and the IRGC. I appreciate that this is after 2022, but to what degree does repetition of this in RS outweigh the possibility of circular citation? Because this seems to go beyond partisan sources. It's also the case that many outlets describe Fars as semi-official, so a relationship with the IRGC does not seem an extraordinary claim. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:56, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I found a much better source: this 2009 Wall Street Journal article states that Fars is at leats under the influence by the IRGC, and has former Guards amongst its staff. Fars denies this, but this is better than the current sourcing. Cortador (talk) 09:26, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Why is this a RFC, and if it's an RFC where is the prior discussion required by the header and noticeboard? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I linked the prior discussions mentioning Fars in the RfC. If that isn’t considered enough then apologies I haven’t done an RfC for a source before JSwift49 11:00, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Anything recent, what has caused this to require a RFC now? The point is that most issues with a source can be resolved by normal discussion, if one hasn't been had recently then that's the place to start. Not jumping to a RFC at the first instance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:04, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Got it, I think the confusion for me was I saw all the deprecated sources had RfCs, so I thought one was necessary to evaluate Fars for deprecation. I wouldn't mind then if the RfC was turned into a regular discussion. JSwift49 00:02, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

@Cortador Here are more detailed writeups by State Media Monitor and Tehran Bureau explaining the IRGC ties. JSwift49 10:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

heiligenlexikon.de

German Wikipedia editors have blocked this source, but I see that is being cited on hundreds of English Wikipedia pages. Since it is written in German, it is doubly useless for English articles. Is there some way to arrange a universal deletion in English instead of picking through the articles one by one? -- Melchior2006 (talk) 09:09, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Since it is written in German, it is doubly useless for English articles. No, not at all. English-language Wikipedia has no requirement to use English-language sources.

Is there some way to arrange a universal deletion in English instead of picking through the articles one by one? This was a decision of German-language Wikipedia. It doesn't apply to English-language Wikipedia until editors here decide to deprecate the source as well. Cortador (talk) 09:17, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Gotcha. Then I request deprecation, since heiligenlexikon.de often uses Wikipedia information (without citing it), has high rates of suspected plagiarism, and no peer review. There is an extensive discussion in German here. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 11:04, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Can you provide examples/evidence of it copying Wikipedia? -- Cdjp1 (talk) 11:11, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Here is a good example of verbatim appropriation from a printed source without quotation marks. ÖHL reads: Narcissus floh der Legende nach mit seinem Diakon Felix vor der Diokletianischen Christenverfolgung über die Alpen. Auf dem Weg verlangte der Teufel eine Seele von ihm, Narcissus zwang den Teufel aber, stattdessen einen Drachen zu töten, der zuvor alle, die aus einer Quelle am Weg Wasser schöpfen wollten, mit seinem Gifthauch umgebracht hatte.

And Hiltgard L. Keller: Reclams Lexikon der Heiligen und der biblischen Gestalten 386-387 reads: Narzissus, Hl. (18. März), Bischof von Gerona, flieht mit seinem Diakon Felix vor der Diokletianischen Christenverfolgung über die Alpen. Auf dem Wege verlangt der Teufel eine Seele von ihm, N. zwingt ihn, statt dessen einen Drachen zu töten, der Wege sperrend, alle, die aus einer Quelle Wasser schöpfen wollen, mit seinem Gifthauch umbringt. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 11:55, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

And surprisingly, that is not Wikipedia. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 12:35, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

It might count as being to close a paraphrase if it was on Wikipedia, ÖHL does list Reclams Lexikon der Heiligen und der biblischen Gestalten as one of its sources, but I'm unsure of the situation under German law. Either way it's not ÖHL using Wikipedia as a source. A more relevant example would be this article, which lists frwiki as a source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:14, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Here are five articles, for starters, where the ÖHL uses Wikipedia. It is full of Wikipedia references. Fara, Farina, Katharina,

Hugo, Daniel -- Melchior2006 (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Just to double down on that second point, the consensus on another language version of Wikipedia doesn't effect this one. Each language variant of Wikipedia is run entirely independently.
If they use Wikipedia as a source then that is already covered by WP:CIRCULAR, and should be replaced or removed as appropriate. Deprecating sources is generally only used for the worst of sources, not just normal unreliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:07, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

You are right, of course. Hence please permit me to start a consensus discussion on English Wiki that on the "unreliability scale" this source is 95% unreliable. I agree with Melchior that all refs to it should be sent out to sea. I do not know of an automated way of doing so, but let us mark it as very unreliable as a start. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 00:27, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Mysteries of the Equilateral Triangle by Brian J. McCartin

The book Mysteries of the Equilateral Triangle by Brian J. McCartin is said to be reliable in the given discussion at WT:WPM#A reliable source. Although the publisher is from Hikari Ltd., the author is known for the individual's expertise, and recognized in ACM and 2010 Chauvenet Prize.

Frankly, is this a good spot for asking the reliability? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

It's likely that Brian J. McCartin would be considered a WP:EXPERTSPS, so his selfpublished work on mathematics would be reliable. Given that the work contains historical details I would say that I wouldn't use his works, selfpublished or not, outside of mathematics though. Especially if it conflicts with works published by experts in history or archaeology. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:27, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

He is a math teacher and knows undergrad math topics. But Paul Erdős he is not. So we can cite him for undergrad level math topics, not the more advanced topics. By the way I had never heard of Kettering University where he was teaching. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:01, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

See also earlier discussion of this source at WT:WPM § A reliable source. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

As always, we need to be told what the source is being cited for. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:15, 7 August 2026 (UTC)