Revisiting the Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Groups List
I would like to revisit the question of whether the Southern Poverty Law Center is a reliable source for whether or not a group is a hate group.
I would rather not be sidetracked into a discussion of whether the SPLC is reliable on other topics. That discussion may be worth having, but this is not the place for it.
This may turn into an RfC later, but please don't jump the gun -- we need to make sure any RfC asks the right questions through prior discussion.
If the SPLC is the only source for labeling a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should not make the claim on any page, attributed or not.
If reliable sources label a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should use those sources, and should not add the SPLC as an additional source.
In my opinion, the SPLC has a strong perverse incentive to label groups they politically disagree with as "hate" groups in order to solicit donations and advance their political agenda, even when there is no evidence behind the listing.
There exists no RS on whether the SPLC is a RS on hate groups, only opinions. The reader of the following list should consider the source and reliability of the source, and pay special attention to any verifiable facts contained in an otherwise unreliable source. That being said, here are the reasons why I came to the above conclusion:
I would like to discuss one specific example which to me shows exactly why I believe that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not a reliable source for whether or not a group is a hate group.
Do they make any effort to check sources? Do they print a retraction or a correction when they are shown to have made an error?
Let's look at the sad case of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub.
Start with this report from the Iowa City Press Citizen:[1]
Apparently, someone with the screen name "Concerned Troll" posted "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!" on theDaily Stormer website, claiming that this "bookclub" met sometime in September 2016 at a unnamed restaurant somewhere in the Amana Colonies, Iowa. Based upon nothing more that that single post, the SPLC listed the Iowa town a "refuge of hate" and listed them as as "the home of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group".
One small problem:The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed. They never met. The restaurant was never named. The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing. Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed.
The Des Moines Register contacted the SPLC, and Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative writer for the SPLC initially told them that claims by community and Iowa County leaders that no such groups exist in the town are wrong.
Then later, after there was a storm of controversy, the SPLC silently changed the claim to say that this imaginary hate group is "statewide", and later even that claim was silently deleted.
The SPLC still to this day refuses to provide any evidence other than the internet post by "Concerned Troll" to support the original or the revised claim.
The SPLC vigorously stood by its claim for a full year[2], ignoring all calls for any actual evidence, and only reluctantly revised the page to falsely claim that the nonexistent group exists on a statewide level.
When you make a claim without a shred of evidence[3] other than a post on a neo-nazi website by an anonymous user who is an admitted troll, and then stand by your claim for well over a year without providing a shred of evidence, andthen change the claim to another false claim, never publishing a retraction and never admitting that you were wrong, you no longer have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, as required to be considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk)14:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
If SPLC is theonly source calling a group a hate group (or similar classification), and that that classification is not itself discussed in sources, then it seems to be an UNDUE issue of including the SPLC's mention, rather than trying to use questions around RS to try to justify inclusion or not.
Of course, if the SPLC's classification itself is the subject of coverage in sources though remains the only source actually calling a group a hate group, that is appropriate for discussion along the lines of the issues around the SPLC's classification. eg DUE is meet. And same when other RSes call a group a hate group, or where there at least some debate about whether a group is a hate group or note, then the SPLC classification also would be DUE. All these cases avoid trying to question SPCL's RS's nature, though obviously in all cases where used, we should have in-prose attribution and not assume wikivoice of the SPLC's classification.Masem (t)14:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I am pretty sure that we are already attributing SPLC everywhere it is used as a reference for hate groups. Few editors get that sort of thing wrong and if they do thier edits don't survive.WP:DUE says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been publishedby reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." You have to pass the "reliable source" hurdle before you even get to the "due weight" hurdle. We wouldn't reject a citation toInfowars because of DUE. We would reject it because of RS. And we wouldn't allow a citation to Infowars as an an additional, attributed reference even for material already covered by reliable sources. I am arguing that in the area of hate groups, we should treat the SPLC as an unreliable source, not as a reliable source that has been given undue weight. --Guy Macon (talk)15:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I am arguing that in the area of hate groups, we should treat the SPLC as an unreliable source, not as a reliable source that has been given undue weight. If that is your contention, then at least for my part, I find your argument in support of it wholly unconvincing. A bunch of sources defending their political allies from serious charges with emotive or unsound arguments doesn't come anywhere near to making that case.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.15:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
a bunch of sources defending their political allies […] with emotive or unsound arguments Bruh…have you read even one of the articles OP linked? Both contentions in your statement are manifestly incorrect, and several of the sources have a lot less controversy about their reliability than the SPLC. You can’t seriously believe thatThe Atlantic (a national mainstream publication, and leftist enough to platform some very edgy views from time to time) is going to have ulterior motives when it criticizes SPLC. When a very well-researchedPolitico article characterizes its actions the way that it does there, that is a serious matter.RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk)02:02, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
No, we are not attributing them everywhere. The RfC for this was very confusing, which was why I attempted to challenge the closure, but was unsuccessful. The status quo is we have to attribute their opinions and everything else is ??? uncertain, due to the lack of clarity in the last RfC's closure, which everyone seems to have interpreted differently. When I proposed actually enforcing said RfC closure, people became quite irate, so... But as is onwiki, we do not actually attribute them for most of what we cite to them, except aformentioned opinion statements, and it is unclear if we have to. Personally, I do not think we have to; the incidents you are discussing are not really convincing.PARAKANYAA (talk)23:05, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't think that the SPLC's list should be theonly source used to state in wikivoice that a certain group is a 'hate group'. I think it should be discussed on a case-by-case basis whether to state a group is 'designated as a hate group by the SPLC' on sole basis of inclusion on that list, with a preference towards exclusion.
In all cases, we should have multiple sources asserting that a group is a hate group before we state it in our voice, and in general, we should have at leasesome coverage of the SPLC's designation before we consider itWP:DUE for inclusion.
That being said, that list of sources above isn't the best. For example, theCity Journal piece is from 2017, and it states thatdiversity is universally promoted as a civic virtue which is an unequivocally false statement in 2025. I would even contend that it was an unequivocally false statement in 2017, as well, given that the demonization ofDEI in particular and diversity more generally by the political right in this country long predates that year, going back at least as far as the early days of the Obama administration. (It's arguable that it would be a false statement, no matter when it was made, because opposition to diversity has always existed, but I understand the CJ's statement to be in the context of mainstream American politics.)
Indeed, it looks like most of the sources you've cited are right-wing advocacy groups or right-leaning news orgs, at least two of which are 'no consensus on reliability' sources fromWP:RSP.
Digging further into it... One of the few non-right-wing sources you provided,The Mercury News is merely reposting a story from WaPo written by Dana Milbank, the 'extravagant contrarian', which implies without argument that it is ridiculous for the SPLC to label theFamily Research Council a hate group. Except that is an instance in which the SPLC's inclusion on the list is well-justified, covered in multiple reliable sources, and (while, perhaps, arguable), completely understandable to anyone who cares about LGBTQ issues. The FRC disseminates disinformation about LGBTQ people and issues, after all. In 1999, they claimed with a full chest that one of the primary goals of LGBTQ activists was toabolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order. At best, that is blatant bigotry, which is the same thing as 'hate' in this context.
While numerous criticisms of the FRC being included in the SPLC's list can be easily found, the objections raised never seem to extend beyond "this is a well-funded and powerful group, how dare you call them hateful!"
I'm not going to go into more detail about the list, because I do think some of those represent fair criticisms. But there's enough dubious sources and dubious claims within it that I think it could use a heavy-handed pruning. At the very least, providing some context about the source and nature of the critiques would be a good step.
To be clear, I stand by my opinion above. I don't think the SPLC should be our only source to establish whether a group is a hate group. I think we need either broad acceptance of the SPLC's designation in secondary sources, or multiple, independent sources asserting it.
But I would also advise you to trim down that list, and possibly to stop reading many of those outlets to get useful views on the SPLC. My opinion is based on my understanding of WP policy, and the argument presented here is far too weak to have had any impact on it.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.15:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
"this is a well-funded and powerful group, how dare you call them hateful" Last I checked, you can't promote hatred and persecution in a society if you don't have some kind of funding and access to themass media which are supposed to promote yourpropaganda. Well-funded groups are destined to have more influence on the corporate media, regardless of who is their favoritescapegoat.Dimadick (talk)00:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Exactly. And it's wild to me that anyone would even defend the FRC. They've been pushing the blatantly falseand hateful claim that most pedophiles are members of the LGBTQ community for years and years. What is that, if not hateful?ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.14:04, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion about the main question yet (as I haven't investigated sufficiently), but a few points:
That there is no public evidence other than one or more pseudonymous statements on the Daily Stormer's site ≠ "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed." The former makes the latter more likely but isn't determinative.
It would help to be able to read what the SPLC actually wrote. Is there an archived copy of it somewhere? For example, the Iowa City Press Citizen says "The Amana Colonies is no longer designated as the home of the neo-Nazi group. The Southern Poverty Law Center had previously designated the historic settlement as the home of the Daily Stormer," but it's hard for me to believe that the SPLC referred to the Amana Colonies as "the home" of the Daily Stormer rather than "a home". (Is "the home" of the website the place where the people funding the website live? where the site is hosted? why would it even make sense to focus on the home of the site rather than the locations where supporters live? ...). Yes, this is picky, but if the Iowa City Press Citizen isn't careful about this, what other elements may they have gotten wrong?
The Iowa City Press Citizen wrote that the SPLC said "it had confirmation that a group of individuals met sometime in September 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas. A thread, originally posted on the Daily Stormer and since cached by Google, backed the claim." Google no longer makes their caches public, so there is no way to check that their cache, but if there was a thread in response to Concerned Troll's statement, and the thread mentioned a restaurant, then the public evidence wasn't limited to a single statement by one person, Concerned Troll. Also, if the SPLC did, in fact, have some independent confirmation about a meeting at a restaurant, it would be good to know more specifically what the SPLC itself said to the Iowa City Press Citizen, rather than just the latter's statement describing what the SPLC said.
When I went to find a bit of info, I saw that you (Guy Macon), gave the sameexample in a thread 4 years ago. Do you have any other examples of what you consider serious problems with SPLC's reporting?FactOrOpinion (talk)15:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
Agreed here. I'd take the "he said/she said" in regards to a single incident a website mentioned (that is apparently not even accessible) years ago with a huge, huge grain of salt.Lostsandwich (talk)19:00, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
So I've poked around a bit more, andGuy Macon, I question some of your information. As best I can tell, here's a timeline of (some of) the relevant Daily Stormer posts:
In August 2017, one source, The Gazette,says "A cached page of The Daily Stormer's former website - which was taken down by the Go Daddy hosting service in the wake of the deadly rally - shows members planning the meeting about one year ago." Presumably The Gazette reviewed the cached copy.
August 31, 2016: someone with an unspecified name posts on the Daily Stormer that "I'm going to be busy on weekends for a while, but let's do an East Iowa book club too." "Reply if you'd be down. CR [Cedar Rapids], IC [Iowa City], Davenport, Waterloo, etc ... The Amana Colonies might be a sweet place to meet. There is an awesome free shooting range on Amana road plus it is a historic German community.” (The Gazette)
September 23, 2016: another person with an unspecified name writes that they're "down for the Amana Colonies. ... I would really like for this to happen, they have great food over there, plenty of outside space to chat.” (same source)
No other info is provided about the rest of the thread; perhaps it also included a suggestion for a book club elsewhere in Iowa, given the "too." Alternatively, that person could have been proposing more than one kind of gathering (again, "too").
September 26, 2016: Concerned Troll posts “The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!” PJ Mediasays "Concerned Troll did not provide specific details about the visit, but went on to suggest a subsequent meeting in Des Moines." Presumably PJ Media also saw a cached copy of the page.
The Gazette also says "The Southern Poverty Law Center - which tracks hate groups - lists Amana as one of several locations in the nation for The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi hate group. ... [T]hat appears to be due to members deciding to meet there for a so-called book club. Ryan Lenz, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that designation does not mean Amana is home to any actual neo-Nazis. ... 'We know people drive many, many miles - hundreds of miles - to sit with like-minded people.' While hate group activity increasingly has moved to cyberspace, Lenz said The Daily Stormer took the opposite approach in 2016 by calling for members and would-be members to attend 'book clubs” and meet one another. ... Once the center's researchers uncovered the cities where these meet ups were to take place, the cities were added to the map when it was updated this year. Lenz said it was impossible to know how many times the meetups took place." So it sounds like part of the problem is how SPLC and others interpret a given location being listed on the SPLC map, and whether SPLC explains this well.
Guy Macon, you said "Based upon nothing more that that single post, the SPLC listed the Iowa town a 'refuge of hate' and listed them as as 'the home of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group'." Do you have a link to what the SPLC wrote? I think we should all be able to read it in full. Clearly it wasn't just one post. You also wrote "They never met." How do you know? "The restaurant was never named." How do you know? This sourcesays "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met says "people who promote hate are not welcome," so the local Fox channel knew the name of the restaurant; otherwise they couldn't have gotten a statement from the owner. You say "The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing." Please link to a copy of this police report. "Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed." No, it seems like they were using more than the one post.FactOrOpinion (talk)21:31, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
The Local CBS2/FOX28 news station said (Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director David Rettig) "Rettig says he even called the county sheriff to see if there had ever been any reports of hate groups being active and was told no. He says the sheriff then contacted authorities in Des Moines to see if anything ever showed up on their radar and again the response was no."[4] The Des Moines Register wrote "Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter also has denounced the claim a hate group exists, stating there is no such neo-Nazi group in the county and called the claims 'irresponsible at best'"[5] Compared this we have exactly Zero sources other that the SPLC claiming that the group exists and the SPLC specificly listing one particular anon post on a Nazi discussion group as the reason they think it exists. Yes, we can speculate that other anonymous posts from Nazis (or one Nazi with multiple accounts) may have chimed in, but the SPLC, while defending their listing again and again for over a year, did not quote any other anonymous Nazis. There is no police report because there was nothing to report. There was nothing to report because nothing happened. Any further attempts to convince me that a group of individuals calling themselves the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub met sometime in 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas should be accompanied by a source other than the SPLC that makes that claim, or at the very least a source where the SPLC provides a shred of evidence other than anonymous posts on a Nazi message board. If the attempt to convince me lacks such sources, I will continue to ignore them. The belief that the group exists is, in my opinion, a matter of faith and not evidence. --Guy Macon (talk)03:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Why would local law enforcement know or care if a bunch of people held a book club? Are book clubs illegal?
They did not call themselves that as a group, it wasthe Daily Stormer. At no point did the SPLC claim that the "First Iowa Stormer Bookclub" was a group distinct from the Stormer, so we aren't arguing about that, and I don't know why you keep bringing it up.PARAKANYAA (talk)03:39, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
"the SPLC specificly listing one particular anon post on a Nazi discussion group as the reason they think it exists. ... the SPLC, while defending their listing again and again for over a year, did not quote any other anonymous Nazis." Please provide a source for that. All I found on the SPLCwebsite is that it was a local group identified as "Neo-Nazi, The Daily Stormer, Amana, Iowa," with nothing about the source of the information. As for "County Sheriff Rob Rotter also has denounced the claim a hate group exists, stating there is no such neo-Nazi group in the county," as best I can tell, a lot of this boils down to a misunderstanding of what an ID on the hate map means, even though I quoted it above. Here it is again:
Ryan Lenz, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that designationdoes not mean Amana is home to any actual neo-Nazis. ... 'We know people drive many, many miles - hundreds of miles - to sit with like-minded people.' While hate group activity increasingly has moved to cyberspace, Lenz said The Daily Stormer took the opposite approach in 2016 by calling for members and would-be members to attend 'book clubs” and meet one another. ... Once the center's researchers uncovered the cities where these meet ups were to take place, the cities were added to the map when it was updated this year. (emphasis added)
So the SPLC wasn't claiming that there are any neo-Nazis living in Amana; all they were saying is that the Daily Stormer encouraged adherents to meet in person, and there was at least one meeting in Amana, and it may be that none of the people who attended lived in the county.
Re: "we have exactly Zero sources other that the SPLC claiming that the group exists," you clearly have the Daily Stormer site claiming that it existed at least to meet once, and perhaps to meet more than once (since PJ Media reported that Concerned Troll "went on to suggest a subsequent meeting in Des Moines"). As I also noted above, the local Fox station said "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met says 'people who promote hate are not welcome,' so they knew the name of the restaurant and claimed that the group met there. I'm not sure why you say "Any further attempts to convince me that a group of individuals calling themselves the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub met sometime in 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas should be accompanied by a source other than the SPLC that makes that claim," when I already provided you with the Fox source.
"There was nothing to report because nothing happened." So why did the local Fox station say that the group met? And why would you think that there would be anything to report about some people meeting / hanging out at a restaurant? The proclaimed intent of the book clubs was just to have people who posted to the Daily Stormer meet others who lived in the same general vicinity as them.FactOrOpinion (talk)04:16, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
BTW, as best I can tell, the sheriff did not investigate until a year later and no one in Amana was aware of the listing until the Unite the Right rally a year later, which is why all of the reporting is from August 2017, not the fall of 2016. Not sure why you'd expect an investigation a year later to turn anything up. BTW, in my experience, police do, in fact, write up a report even if they don't find anything, to record what was investigated and what investigative steps they took (e.g., who they questioned).FactOrOpinion (talk)14:06, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
i dont see much here beyond grumblings from conservative groups that a civil rights group finds that many folks with questionable beliefs belong to such groups.wp:attribute exists for this purpose andWp:publicfigure exists to state that we need multiple sources for any negative statement anyways.User:Bluethricecreamman(Talk·Contribs)15:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
By dint of the fact that we always attribute SPLC (or at least, should do so, which is reflected in the RSP entry), we are clearly treating it as opinion and not fact (by NPOV'sAvoid stating facts as opinions, we should not make such attributions if we consider SPLC's opinions fact). The SPLC is a reliable source for their own opinion, and this can only be an issue with the amount of prominence we ought to give it. The level of reliability issues needed to argue a group is no longer reliable for their own opinion is far beyond people disagreeing in their own opinion pieces.Alpha3031 (t •c)16:04, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
In every article I have seen, the SPLC's designation is attributed inline. For example, "According to SPLC, group x is a hate group." Since whether or not a group is a hate group is reported as a matter of opinion not fact, this is the incorrect noticeboard. It should be NPOVN.
In fact the SPLC is a reliable source of information about right-wing extremist groups. Unfortunately for them, a large number of right-wing columnists subscribe to at least one of the views they consider hate, which generates a lot of opposition in the right-wing echo chamber.
DescribingChristina Hoff Sommers as "giving a "mainstream and respectable face" to groups peddling "male supremacy"" (as stated in theReason article cited above) probably agrees with the conclusions of most subject experts. Of course, it offends some conservatives. But no one is suggested it be reported as a fact without inline citation.TFD (talk)01:03, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
SPLC's reliability really should be deprecated, but that can be reserved for another discussion, for the purposes of this discussion, I'd say that both of the above opinion items are in fact valid and should be implemented. Thanks @Guy MaconIljhgtn (talk)20:41, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
@Guy Macon, it looks like you're getting a lot of pushback, and I don't want to pile on but... I don't see that your opinion if implemented would be an improvement on our existing consensus.
You think thatIf the SPLC is the only source for labeling a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should not make the claim on any page, attributed or not. Currently,WP:SPLC says that "The organization's views, especially when labeling hate groups, should be attributed per WP:RSOPINION. Take care to ensure that content from the SPLC constitutes due weight in the article and conforms to the biographies of living persons policy."
If SPLC were the only source saying a group is a hate group, and no one else covered it, I would agree with you (and I think our existing consensus would also be to omit the classification). If the SPLC were the only source labeling a group as a hate group,and that designation received significant secondary coverage, I would interpret your opinion as saying we should omit the attributed label, whereas the existing consensus would be to include. I think that your way would undermineWP:NPOV - it's not for us to decide that secondary sources are highlighting the "wrong" opinions, even if SPLC's designations are suspect.
Moreover, I thinkWP:SPLC provides plenty of caution in our use of SPLC as a source for its opinion content (the hate designations), even as it holds them generally reliable for factual information. The question of SPLC's general reliability is separate and not directly addressed by your opinions in the first post - I think that if you're correct about the whole Nazi book club thing, that's concerning and is reason to look into their editorial processes, but given the RfC was recent, I wouldn't want to reopen the issue unless more of a pattern can be established.Samuelshraga (talk)09:36, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Would that be the comment that claims that anonymous Nazis (or maybe one Nazi with multiple accounts) posting on a Daily Stormer website are acceptable as primary sources? Do you have a single thread of actual evidence that the book club ever met in Amana? Any sources at all that can't be traced back to the post by "Concerned Troll"? The SPLC has steadfastly refused to even mention any other source despite numorous press enquiries. --Guy Macon (talk)15:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
That source has been provided to youmultiple times already: "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met..."[6]. At this point you a dangerously close to IDHT.Thryduulf (talk)15:30, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
This seems to be covered byWP:ATT. To be called a hate group by SPLC is not nothing, so if a third party source mentions that SPLC calls them a hate group, it probably merits mention. However, “SPLC calls them a hate group, source, SPLC calling them a hate group” is inappropriate for the usual reasons.Guy(help! -typo?)08:44, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
* SPLC is a garbage source and shouldn't be used for defamatory information.SPLC uses highly negative or alarmist portrayals to drive donations. SPLC has been sued times for mislabeling organizations and people as “hate” or “extremist” groups. Some cases settled, others were dismissed, and some are still pending. That it is used so extensively on this project, many times as the sole source for a defamatory material reposted without attribution as fact is an issue in and of itself.Absadah (talk)21:06, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
That article is more or less just complaining that the SPLC lists groups that are anti-gay marriage as "hate groups". I don't find that to be a compelling argument against it, at least from the perspective that Wikipedia usually comes from. It's not any more garbage than the media, or academia is, which in my experiences in this topic area are just as often wrong as the SPLC is.PARAKANYAA (talk)23:13, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
It seems that in its 54 years the SPLC has retracted descriptions of people or groups after criticisms or legal threats a grand total of THREE times, two of which relate to a designation as “extremist” and none to a designation as a “hate group”. I don’t think there’s a single case against them that has come to court and resulted in them losing.BobFromBrockley (talk)07:58, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
This is aWP:DUE question, not aWP:RS question, since you acknowledge that when it's the only source it's generally used for attributed opinion. Beyond that, sources you cite are unconvincing - these are largely opinion or heavilyWP:BIASED sources (and most of them are accusing it of bias; bias doesn't make a source unreliable. It just requires attribution,which we currently use.) These sources establishe that the SPLC iscontroversial, not that it isunreliable; and they establish that what it says attracts massive amounts of attention, which lends it weight. Indeed, many of these are worded from a clear perspective of, essentially, "everyone trusts the SPLC and treats it seriously, but theyshouldn't", ie. they acknowledge that they are taking a minority position. And beyond that, the argument that we shouldn't describe the SPLC's opinionseven when heavily covered by high-quality secondary sources is absurd - nothing gets that level of prohibition. Literal lies spouted by Lucifer himself could be included in our articles if given sufficient high-quality secondary coverage; we'd want to cover it the way the secondary sourcing does and hope that they'd point out any problems, but in that case it is the secondary source's reputation that matters. And the fact is that, as you are probably aware, secondary sources quite frequently defer to the SPLC - which is doubtless why you made this suggestion, but, again, "fixing" that isn't how we work! "These people areso bad that even when secondary sources quote them we should ignore it because they were obviously wrong to do so" isWP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. I don't think you've even convincingly made the argument that the SPLC is unreliable, but certainly we have to cover it when it is given significant weight by secondary sources. If anything, the fact that a significant minority dislikes or distrusts the SPLC is an additional reason to make it clear when secondary sources are relying on them - the implication of your request here would be that if an academic paper says "XYZ is a hate group, according to the SPLC", we would... cite that paper without mentioning that it attributes it to the SPLC? That's worse, you do see how that's worse, right? --Aquillion (talk)21:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
This is a WP:DUE question, not a WP:RS question, since you acknowledge that when it's the only source it's generally used for attributed opinion. That was my thought when I first responded, as well, but Guy clarified inthis comment that he's arguing that the SPLC is unreliable. Apparently, Guy finds those heavily biased right-wing opinion articles much more convincing than the rest of us do.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.21:26, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
Many were not "heavily biased right-wing opinion articles". It's easy to be correct when you can just ignore every dissenting comment.Buffs (talk)17:34, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
I'm impressed by your audacity in not putting the word 'many' in scare quotes there. I sure as shit would have.
There is no assumption of bad faith in my response. I merely opined my surprise that you would use such a patently untrue word as 'many' without enclosing it in scare quotes, then laid out why. The why here was germane, of course, as it forms a coherent and sound rebuttal to your eminently false claim.
As for my language... I've had enough collegial discussions peppered with 'shits', 'fucks', 'asses', 'bitches', 'bastards', 'cocks', 'cunts' and 'tits' and even the occasional 'syphilitic shit-packing ass-weasel' to know with absolute certainty that you're just plain wrong.
You know what's not very conducive to collegial discussions? Bullshit accusations meant to sidestep valid criticism of arguments. That shit will derail a discussion like little else. (Notice how we're no longer discussing the number of left-wing sources in Guy's list, if you need proof.) Oh, and pearl-clutching about curse words. That tends to be pretty toxic to a good chat, too.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.18:41, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
These sources are overwhelmingly right wing publications, followed by those few that aren't but which are almost a decade old, and lastly the NYT piece which is an op-edSnokalok (talk)21:33, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I agree with what everyone else, who posted before me, is saying. Your best bet for restricting the use of SPLC is probably asking whether their opinion is undue when their opinion isn't covered in other secondary sources. Or that if their assessement isn't covered in other sources, it should not be in the lead.Rolluik (talk)22:11, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
Read my everyone else as most people. Some people's opinions, I hadn't read yet because they posted at nearly the same time.Rolluik (talk)22:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
Agree with other commenters - only use with attribution, and not necessarily in the lead. However, this does raise the question of whether it should be down graded atWP:RSP - perhaps to a yellow “additional considerations”.Blueboar (talk)22:23, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I don’t think it raises that question. We have discussed this numerous times and no new evidence calling for additional considerations has been presented in this thread.BobFromBrockley (talk)08:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
This suggestion strikes me as pointless. If the SPLC is the sole source describing a group as a hate group, that description is going to be attributed anyway. If there's multiple source also describing a group as a hate group alongside the SPLC, why omit it them?Cortador (talk)22:24, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
And, as someone who mostly edits about the 'far-right', my opinion on the SPLC itself and theirfactual reporting (not their opinions), I would say they are generally reliable, as our protracted RFC earlier this year concluded and my own experience researching and using them as a source. I have rarely taken issue with their factual reporting, far less than with news media, for example. As shown by FactOrOpinion the specific case at issue is overblown and I don't actually see any issue with how they reported it. The other incidents pointed out here are not really convincing and are a mix of opinion pieces and people subject to the pieces complaining about their opinions. They are just extremely opinionated, but so is all scholarship on this topic (and academic on "hate groups" post-NA is almost entirely just recycling the SPLC anyway), but when it comes to factual matters they are generally excellent. In that regard, they are not really any worse than academia. Relative to all other anti-hate watchdog groups they are by far the most reputable and reliable in terms of facts. But whether it's from the SPLC or anyone else "hate group" is like "terrorist" in that it isa contentious label and basically inherently opinion so per MOS:LABELshould never be said in wikivoice, e.g. we do not call Hitler evil in wikivoice for the same.PARAKANYAA (talk)23:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't see this discussion really changing how the source is used but my feeling is they should be treated like other advocacy organizations in that we shouldn't give weight to anything they report unless independent RSs do it first. The SPLC, in my view, shouldn't be the only source for a claim of any type. In this regard we would treat it like any number of generally respected advocacy groups/think tanks. As mentioned above, we recently had a long RfC on the SPLC so I don't see the status changing here.Springee (talk)00:26, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
We do use advocacy orgs for factual claims all the time, and there is no policy reason not to. Especially on any topic related to white supremacists/the far right... check pretty much any page for one, and it will be a main source. I don't see any particular reason to treat them differently than other RS, as bias is not related to reliability, and academia is just as if not more biased against white supremacy than the SPLC.PARAKANYAA (talk)00:56, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
I'm not sure wp should be going into whether a group is a "hate group" or not. I think it's more encyclopedic to describe the kind of hate, for example, anti-trans, anti-lgbt, white nationalist, ethnic supremacist, etc. (t ·c)buidhe02:45, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
OP’s proposal has no policy basis. No new evidence has been presented to change our previous consensus reached in multiple discussions. Nothing in this thread indicates use of this source makes our articles problematic in any way. This is not a generative discussion.BobFromBrockley (talk)08:06, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Their lists are entirely subjective and opinionated, as PARAKANYAA stated. Who and what is hateful is an opinion. They have also been known to act like a shakedown organization and thrive on churning and farming hate groups to maintain their existence, which has greatly deviated from the original purpose. Designations like this should probably not even be allowed on here, just like the use ofWP:TERRORIST is restricted. ←Metallurgist (talk)06:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
This is not a comment on the usage of their designations, which I generally do not care for, but since I find your comment to have some wider implications for their accuracy: when it comes to their factual content they do have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy", and in my experience looking at them as a source they are good. There are no non-opinionated sources on "hate groups" (even academia, which is just as opinionated) or whatever else such groups that tend to be called hate groups are called. If we were to prohibit sources on this topic for being opinionated we would not have any; whether the factual material is accurate is what matters.
And to be fair, in their treatment of 'hate groups', they really have not changed at all from how they were in the past (many of these specific complaints are decades old).PARAKANYAA (talk)07:22, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Guy Macon lefta message on my talk page inviting me to this discussion, and it looks like they also invitedabout 24 others too, with no explicit mention of selection criteria. I've read the discussion on this page and a selection of the articles linked to, and like most others who have commented previously I am not persuaded that any change to the status quo is required.Thryduulf (talk)14:49, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
If you look at the source of the invitation you will find "Sent to everyone who commented on the RfC" (skipping, of course, anyone who has already commented here). Please note that this means that the majority of those notified disagreed with me last time and are expected to disagree with me again. --Guy Macon (talk)14:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Guy, I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds your decision to ping all of us here reasonably neutral enough in a fashion that does not run afoul ofWP:CANVAS, even if your objective in doing so seems likely to have been trying to blow this discussion up to a scale where you might have a chance at a second bite at the apple. But bluntly, the effort to do that and the timing you have chosen raise some serious concerns in themselves. Given the massive scale of that previous discussion, the substantial consensus that resulted, and the fact that there was a robust closure review affirming the result, this feels far too soon to re-litigate the outcome of that discussion yet again. And you are doing so not in light of new information but by presenting sources that were largely already available during the previous discussions, and by leveraging one niche, cherry-picked case study of your own design. Which, as others have noted, has a non-trivial amount of speculation in it--and indeed, arguably a fair bit of spin/selective presentation of the facts, intentional or otherwise.In short, this dispute has already consumed gargantuan amounts of volunteer time, only to result in a fairly robust consensus. And yet, four months and a few weeks after the end of the closure review, you've revived the discussion basically along the same exact line of inquiry. Now I'll go ahead andWP:AGF that your reasons for pinging such a large group back here to participate again was an attempt to be seen as approaching this situation in a pro forma, neutral fashion. But I also doubt you did so without realizing that the only way the previous consensus would be deemed to be overturned would be if this discussion reached a roughly comparable scale of engagement, and that you had nothing to lose from the effort at making this as big a thing as possible again and hoping that discussion shook out in another direction this time. Frankly, given the full context here, I feel that your overall approach here is very arguablyWP:DISRUPTIVE and I'm a little surprised you haven't faced more pushback for it, all things considered. And I say that as someone who came to the RfC without previous involvement in the dispute, and whose mind remains open to re-assessing in the future.So while I am not advocating for any action as a result of this effort to revive the discussion, if this thread continues to demonstrate anything less than a massive landslide shift in community perspective (which shift seems highly unlikely) I wouldstrongly advise you toWP:DROPTHESTICK on this sooner rather than later. Because it's not hard to imagine the possibility of a TBAN if you continue to try to re-open this black hole of a dispute on the basis of idiosyncratic arguments you appear to have been making for several years now. Consensus can change, and this source does intersect with some controversial topics, but even considering those circumstances, the community cannot keep dropping such a volume of volunteer effort into this matter simply because you are not prepared to admit that you lost the argument for the immediate future.SnowRise let's rap01:16, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
It's definitely canvassing. It's probably isn'tinappropriate canvassing, and doesn't seem to have been otherwise disruptive.Thryduulf (talk)20:36, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
By definition, Canvassingis inappropriate.WP:CANVAS: "Canvassing is notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way, and is considered inappropriate"
In contrast, notifications of this manner areappropriate. Again, from WP:CANVASS: "In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus."
I was canvassed to comment. Of course this requires attribution when mentioned, of course if they are the only organization that characterizes some group as a hate group it is likely to be undue weight, but certainly they are a reliable source. Any organization tracking hate groups is occasionally going to be an outlier in some of their characterizations: each have their own criteria, plus it's not a science. -Jmabel |Talk15:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Wouldn't call it canvassing—audience notified appears non-partisan. That said, I feel like this discussion can be closed tomorrow if there's no steam for changing the consensus.Aaron Liu (talk)17:12, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
I still don't see any problem as long as it's attributed. As mentioned above, the SPLC has existed for over 50 years and the number of times it's beengenuinely pulled up on its definitions is comparatively tiny. Also, I'd look again at whether that long list of sources above is useful here; even at a brief glance, some are obviously unreliable (Capital Research, City Journal), whilst the Washington Examiner/Weekly Standard is yellow-flagged for partisanship at RSP and some of the others are op-eds. Even theHarpers article starts "(SPLC is ...) the do-gooder group that does very little good". There's painfully little from reliable and non-partisan sources there.Black Kite (talk)16:00, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
They're generally reliable on the subject of hate groups, though as an advocacy organization their analysis should (usually*) be attributed. (*If a wide number and variety of sources agree that an organication is a hate group, I believe the responsible editorial decision is to say that in wikivoice. That is more of a DUE issue than RS, however.) I don't think the critical sources above move the needle much, if at all.Woodroar (talk)16:17, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
How can you look at the way they determined that the Amana Colonies was the headquarters for a hate group and conclude that they are reliable on the subject of hate groups? They based this on an anonymous post on a Nazi discussion list and have refused to respond to multiple requests from the Amana Colonies and the Des Moines Register asking them for a shred of evidence other than the Nazi discussion list that their claim was true. --Guy Macon (talk)17:28, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
See FactOrOpinion's very lengthy explanation above.
Every material on neo-Nazis will ultimately be based on primary sources from neo-Nazis. I don't know what other sources you would expect.PARAKANYAA (talk)17:39, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Seriously? You are defending using an anonymous post on a Nazi message board as a source? It isn't even a primary source. No actual Nazi group has ever claimed that the Stormer Book Club exists. Just the anonymous post. --Guy Macon (talk)17:48, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Every source aboutThe Daily Stormer, a pseudonymous neo-Nazi message board, is ultimately using The Daily Stormer as a source for its own opinions and operations. The Stormer was not a "group" in that sense so yeah obviously they wouldn't say that. Where else do you expect them to get information on its content?PARAKANYAA (talk)17:53, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
As an advocacy organization, I'm of the opinion that all of their content from their own sites should be considered self-published. --Kyohyi (talk)16:29, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Can you cite a policy or guideline for that? Textbooks advocate theories such as the earth is round and it is 4.5 billion years old. We don't question using them because there is no serious objection to their conclusions.TFD (talk)05:03, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
Theocratic fascist
I don't think SLPC is valid for fact checking OR notability. They cover a lot of tiny non-notable groups; that is part of their purpose, so we shouldn't consider those groups notable just because SLPC has an article on them. When it comes to fact checking, this is an example; "Walsh is a self-described “theocratic fascist”".[7] They provide a link to his twitter. He was interviewed back in 2016 about it, and said someone messaged him and told him he was one, so he put it on his twitter as a joke, it's not a self-description of who he is. It is 2025 and they still have it listed as a straight up, factual statement. So, what kind of fact checking did they do? They are a political group, and politicians say this kind of thing about opponents all the time. We can't stop that. But, political talking points like this are always contentious, and should be treated as such. It's not like they are contacting the "hate groups" and asking them for comment - that's not their purpose. But if they aren't useful for Notability or for being reliable... what's the point of using them at all?Denaar (talk)16:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
People don't say things like "theocratic fascist" about themselves all the time. He still has it in his Twitter description (https://x.com/MattWalshBlog), so either he recognizes that it's accurate (even though he says it's a joke) or he recognizes that people take it seriously and is choosing to leave it up anyway.FactOrOpinion (talk)20:52, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
I think in the link you provided, it is beyond obvious that the person there is mentioning that label as a joke. Whether it is funny or not is up to the reader.Iljhgtn (talk)20:54, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
That you, personally, believe it to be a joke does not mean that others believe it to be a joke. If it's a joke, the fact that he's left it there despite knowing that some people are interpreting it as a serious self-description tells us that he doesn't care whether people misinterpret it.FactOrOpinion (talk)21:16, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
You can't seriously believe that he wants people who eat ranch dressing to be burned at the stake, along with anyone who eats Mayo, Ricotta, or Cream Cheese. That's what he says he'll do when it becomes a theocratic fascist.[8]Denaar (talk)03:40, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
That someone has said something is a joke and has, like everyone alive on this planet, made jokes, does not mean they are being honest. The "theocratic fascist" claim appears in a number of academic books, so take up the issue with Routledge, I suppose[9][10], or academics[11]PARAKANYAA (talk)03:45, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
You can't seriously believe that being a theocratic fascist implies anything at all about eating ranch dressing, mayo, ricotta, or cream cheese. As I said: If it's a joke, the fact that he's left it there despite knowing that some people are interpreting it as a serious self-description tells us that he doesn't care whether people misinterpret it.FactOrOpinion (talk)04:20, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
He literally describes himself as a theocratic fascist. He is therefore indeed a self-described theocratic fascist. Our article onMatt Walsh says this without citing SPLC, and cites his response, and it seems it’s his response for which we are unable to find a solid source.His commentary is sometimes described by media outlets astrolling or provocation.[1][2][3][4] He labels himself a "theocraticfascist" in his Twitter biography,[5][6] which he said was an ironic response to an opponent using the label as an insult.[7][better source needed] In other words, other RSs suggest SPLC would indeed be factual if we cited them. Further, SPLC link to their primary source so you were able to verify yourself that they were telling the truth. Our own quote from him doesn’t in fact say it was a joke, but confirms it was his self-description:It does say in my Twitter bio that I'm a theocratic fascist, well because a few months ago someone sent me a message, trying to insult me, and the message said: 'hey, y'know, you should put theocratic fascist in your Twitter bio because that's what you are.' In fact, if we did actually cite SPLC here instead of him, we’d be able to note that he said it was a joke; they say:Walsh sometimes suggests his most extreme comments are satirical or in jest, as when he explained why he describes himself as a theocratic fascist. In other words, SPLC would be a better fact checking source thanBobFromBrockley (talk)04:31, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I am withUser:MjolnirPants on reasons and argumentation behind this case. To start (and maybe even finish) with sources listed as a basis for questioning SPLC credibility, they are all biased, most are hardly well known and/or mainstream, and apart from Politico, most are right wing polemical outlets, including liberal mainstream but deeply flawed and, from liberal point of view, harshly criticized Atlantic. I would additionally point to arguments offered byUser:Jmabel, with whome I absolutely agree, especially on a matter of criteria and the fact that tracking hate (groups) is not based on empirical evidences so it's not a science, which means there is always risk to digress, for the margin of error. On the matter of usage, concerning atribution, I would repeatUser:Woodroar arguments in a post just above. Bottom line, I find SPLC reliable source that should be used with reason and thoughtfully in every individual referencing.--౪ Santa ౪99°17:23, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Are you denying that the SPLC listed Maajid Nawaz and the Amana Colonies were placed on the SPLC hate list? Or that they complained about it? Both claims are well sourced. You can't just dismiss them by saying "everyone complaining is a right wing outlet." Plus, there is the assumption in your argument that it is perfectly OK to label something as a hate group if it is right wing -- no actual evidence required. If I made an article titledList of organizations designated by Infowars as commies, would you argue that the only people complaining are left wing groups targeted by Alex Jones? --Guy Macon (talk)18:01, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
You were responding to "To start (and maybe even finish) with sources listed as a basis for questioning SPLC credibility, they are all biased". Neither of those two things are listed as sources.
And no, the Amana Colonies were never listed on the hate list as a hate group. Nawaz was never designated as a hate group either.
Well, if you're taking issue with the entity at issue in the case you bring up (the Daily Stormer), that openly denies the Holocaust, being deemed a hate group, then I don't think there's anything that would satisfy you here.
The Daily Stormer exists. The The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub in Amana Colonies Iowa does not. It is a fabrication of the SPLC. They have no source other than an anonymous post on the Daily Stormer message board (not the Daily Stormer itself, which never claimed that the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub exists, just someone posting a message.) That would be like us grabbing the next message from a new IP editor we see on Wikipedia and using that as evidence that whatever they claim must be true. --Guy Macon (talk)19:34, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
That isn't what they said, at all. According to the sources thatyou linked, at no point did they claim that there was a discrete group called the "First Iowa Stormer Bookclub" but that followers of The Daily Stormer were located in Iowa. That is the locus of the whole dispute, it was the entry of The Daily Stormer, that is what you are challenging.PARAKANYAA (talk)19:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
I too would concur that SPLC's assessments are overblown and exaggerated for financial gain (at best) or political gain (at worst). That doesn't mean they are wrong on everything or even a majority of their assessments, but the inclusion of some of these groups as "hate groups" is absurd and clearly politically motivated. Such opinions by ANY advocacy organization (left, right, or center) should be treated with a huge grain of salt and with attribution (at a minimum). I concur with Guy Macon's proposal.Buffs (talk)17:31, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
I'd like to see a list of these groups that are listed by the SPLC as "hate groups" but which apparently obviously aren't. It would be enlightening to this discussion.Black Kite (talk)20:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
The Family Research Council is probably most prominent. Others include Moms for Liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family, Federation for American Immigration Reform, Quilliam, Center for Immigration Studies, The Ruth Institute, Moms for America, Liberty Counsel, Center for Security Policy, Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM), and many others...individuals too: Maajid Nawaz and Ben Carson are probably the most notable, but there are others like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, David Horowitz, Ryan Mauro, Walid Shoebat, and John Guandolo.Buffs (talk)00:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't see how it is objectionable to describe theFamily Research Council, an organization that uses "anti-gay pseudoscience" to falsely conflate homosexuality and pedophilia' as a hate group.
Or theAlliance Defending Freedom which campaigns to criminalise being gay and considers homosexuality a threat to western society. Or theRuth Institute, whose speakers have compared gay marriage to Nazism, blamed homosexuality for the rise of Nazism, and directly link it to paedophilia. It seems reasonable for the SPLC to say that these groups have"beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics." (The value to the reader is knowing that these are not regular research or expert organisations, despite how some of them may present themselves.) I'm struggling with these as examples of unreliability. Quilliam should not be on the list, as the SPLC withdrew that designation several years ago.OsFish (talk)05:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
"The SPLC withdrew that designation several years ago" That's an interesting characterization. the Southern Poverty Law Center listed Quilliam International and Maajid Nawaz in its SPLC Field Guide to Antimuslim Extremists. Nawaz objected, and for two years the SPLC refused to remove the entry. Then Nawaz filed a defamation lawsuit. The SPLC ended up paying out a $3.375 million settlement, admitting that it was wrong, and removing Nawaz and his organization from the list. --Guy Macon (talk)06:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Wow. I guessed that the FRC, who are an obvious hate group, would be mentioned. I didn't expect a number of other quite obvious ones to be listed as exceptions as well though!Black Kite (talk)11:47, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Can you show where SPLC labeled Ali (or indeed any of these other individuals) a “hate group”? Pretty sure they didn’t. Or are you answering a question other than the one you were asked?BobFromBrockley (talk)04:39, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Obviously, individuals aren't "groups". I very clearly said that they were individuals that the SPLC called out. Article is still live[12]Buffs (talk)01:17, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
Upgrade?
I'd actually upgrade them a bit from where we currently have them. When they say a group is a hate group, we should attribute that because that's the SPLC's opinion and not a matter of fact. But they're straight-out reliable for facts about the groups they cover and don't need to be attributed in that context.Loki (talk)18:13, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
They're straight-out reliable for facts about the groups they cover? They cover groups that don't exist, such as the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub in Amana Colonies Iowa. How is that reliable? --Guy Macon (talk)19:38, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Eh, I don't think persistently pushing one of the very few major problems that the SPLC has had over and over again is really helping, to be honest. If we said thatany source that has fucked up in the last 50 years is not reliable, we wouldn't haveany long-standing RS.Black Kite (talk)19:46, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
One of the very few major problems that the SPLC has had? Ben Carson? Maajid Nawaz? The Family Research Council? All of these were highly prominent.Buffs (talk)00:26, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
The “First Iowa Stormer Bookclub” is NOT a “major problem”. As shown above, (a) we don’t know it doesn’t exist, and (b) SPLC didn’t say it does exist. It’s at best aminor problem, but probably it’s nothing at all.BobFromBrockley (talk)04:44, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
That isn't what they said, at all. According to the sources thatyou linked, at no point did they claim that there was a discrete group called the "First Iowa Stormer Bookclub" but that followers of The Daily Stormer were located in Iowa. That is the locus of the whole dispute, it was the entry of The Daily Stormer, that is what you are challenging.PARAKANYAA (talk)19:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
"The Amana Colonies is no longer designated as the home of the neo-Nazi group. The Southern Poverty Law Centerhad previously designated the historic settlement as the home of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white supremacy news and commentary organization."[13] --Guy Macon (talk)20:08, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
You know that quote proves PARAKANYAA's point, right?
Yes. The Daily Stormer, which you have just acknowledged is real. Do you dispute that The Daily Stormer is a real group? The basic claim this whole discussion rests on is not true.PARAKANYAA (talk)20:15, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Of course the Daily Stormer exists. That doesn't prove that they met in Amana. Any further attempts to convince me that a group of individuals calling themselves the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub met sometime in 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas should be accompanied by a source other than the SPLC that makes that claim, or at the very least a source where the SPLC provides a shred of evidence other than anonymous posts on a Nazi message board. --Guy Macon (talk)03:19, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
That is not what the SPLC said, again. They said the Daily Stormer met up in Amanas. I see no reason to doubt this claim.
I don't, to be clear, think this is a reasonable objection. I think the Daily Stormer posts themselves are a reasonable primary source that this meeting occurred and so I'm not particularly inclined to try toWP:SATISFY you here. But also, local news directly says the meeting occurred. And they were able to identify the specific restaurant where it occurred, which the SPLC did not publicly name, so this appears to be independent reporting.Loki (talk)06:57, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
I think anonymous posts on a Nazi message board are not a reasonable primary source for anything, includingWP:ABOUTSELF claims. That doesn't mean SPLC is suddenlyWP:GUNREL or anything like that, but I really think that line of reasoning should go no further.Samuelshraga (talk)09:19, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Oh, so to be clear I don't mean on Wikipedia. We shouldn't be using primary sources in general anyway. I think it's reasonable for the SPLC or other news organizations to use them as their source that this meeting happened.Loki (talk)16:53, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Is an anonymous post by someone who we only know as "Concerned Troll" (and can changed that user name at will) really a primary source? Its a self-published source with zero indication of who the self who did the publishing is. In todays world we don't even know if there is an actual person behind the post -- it might be an AI that posted a thousand comments using a thousand usernames today. So if an organization can only list a single anonymous self-published source as the sole reason to include a town on a hate list, how doesWP:WEIGHT allow us to have two standalone articles featuring the list? There really is value to the list -- many of those organizations are listed as hate groups by mutiple high-quality sources -- but right now we have no idea whether all of the organizations on the hate group list are actual hate groups. Or whether they are active where the SPLC claims they are. Or whether they exist at all. Perhaps we could replace the current lists with lists of organizations regarded as hate groups by sources thatdon't base inclusion on a single anonymous self-published source? --Guy Macon (talk)20:49, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
You've yet to provide evidence that they claimed they "can only list a single anonymous self-published source as the sole reason to include a town on a hate list," despite being asked.FactOrOpinion (talk)20:58, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
It's a few anonymous posts by different accounts, though, not just the one.
But regardless, we at Wikipedia aren't in the business of second-guessing our sources' sources. We can't cite court documents directly here but we regularly cite sources that read and analyze court documents. We can't cite a petri dish directly but we regularly cite sources that analyze the contents of a petri dish. We don't do original research here but we rely heavily on sources that do.
A quick look at Google Scholar hits shows that a great many writers accept SPLC's hate group classification without question. A few challenge the definitions, but more simply attribute the results to SPLC to make sure that the reader knows the source. Wikipedia should continue to follow this middle path perWP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.Binksternet (talk)18:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
In my opinion the FRC has some really vile positions, but I am undecided as to whether they are an actual hate group. It is a reasonable conclusion, and not batshit insane like the listing of the Amanas and Maajid Nawaz.
From the CNN article:
Peter Montgomery, a blogger for the liberal think tank People for the American Way, said he backs the SPLC's designation. "If you ask me, 'Does the FRC promote hatred towards gays and lesbians?' I would say yes it does," he said. "The FRC is not the KKK. But that doesn't also mean they deserve a free ride from being called out on their hateful rhetoric."
Tufts University political science professor Jeffrey Berry said the council is a mainstream, if very conservative, public policy shop - one of a multitude in Washington. "I'm not comfortable calling them a hate group," he said. "There's probably some things that have been said by one or two individuals that qualify as hate speech. But overall, it's not seen as a hate group," said Berry, who has written extensively about the influence of ideological and public policy groups in Washington.
On the website for "Truth Wins Out," which describes itself as a nonprofit "fighting anti-gay lies and the ex-gay myth," blogger Wayne Bessen wrote that the SPLC was "100% correct" in labeling the council as a hate group. "As someone who reads Perkins' anti-gay fundraising letters - make no mistake about it - this group loathes LGBT people with a special passion," he wrote.
In The Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank wrote ""I disagree with the Family Research Council's views on gays and lesbians," he wrote Thursday. "But it's absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church."
Do you think a group that conflates pedophilia with homosexuality isnot a hate group?
Yeah, that they aren't in the same category of harmfulness as the KKK doesn't mean that every group less significant than the KKK is not a hate group.PARAKANYAA (talk)07:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
They've beenvery specific on this subject:
"FRC has never said, and does not believe, that most homosexuals are child molesters. However, it is undisputed that the percentage of child sex abuse cases that are male-on-male is far higher than the percentage of adult males who are homosexual. This suggests that male homosexuality is a risk factor for child sexual abuse. Homosexual activists argue that men who molest boys are not actually "homosexual;" but scholarly evidence undermines that claim. It also cannot be disputed that there is a sub-culture within the homosexual movement that advocates "intergenerational" sexual relationships. FRC's writings on this topic--unlike the SPLC's--have been carefully documented with references to the original scholarly literature."source
have been carefully documented with references to the original scholarly literature with the most recent research they choose to use being 40 years old, so it would seem they areseverely lacking in their understanding of the literature. And this is before we get into how the argument of "homosexuals are not inherently child molesters, they're just much more likely to be" is still homophobic nonsense, though it is indicative of their 40 year out-of-date research. --Cdjp1 (talk)09:27, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
That's an intentionally and unnecessarily inflammatory reading of the claim being made. A disagreement whether "men who molest boys are homosexual" (paraphrasing) is not the same as "homosexuals are not inherently child molesters, they're just much more likely to be". Just because the research is 40 years old doesn't mean it isn't invalid. Just because it is a "risk factor" doesn't mean it's a probability. A life of crime is often associated with fatherless homes. That means it's a risk factor. That doesn't mean that, just because you come from a fatherless home we should be wary of you because you're more likely to be a criminal. It DOES mean we should identify the correlative factors and do what we can socially to minimize the effects that lead to negative impacts. In the case of a lack of a father in the home, it could be to emphasize good, fatherly figures and engage in activities with positive male role models. In comparison, that same application could apply to saying that we should continue education efforts on safer sex practices and emphasizing the need for consent. That's not the same as vilifying the homosexual community or engaging in "homophobic nonsense".Buffs (talk)17:07, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
it is undisputed that the percentage of child sex abuse cases that are male-on-male is far higher than the percentage of adult males who are homosexual. This suggests that male homosexuality is a risk factor for child sexual abuse.
Absolute nonsense. The basic idea behind even making such a comparison is the assumption that how adults select willing adult sexual partners is the same thing as how child rapists choose victims. That isn't even true in addult rapes. See[14]:"The authors ranked accounts from 133 offenders and 92 victims for the dominant issue and found that the offenses could be categorized as power rape (sexuality used primarily to express power) or anger rape (use of sexuality to express anger). There were no rapes in which sex was the dominant issue; sexuality was always in the service of other, nonsexual needs." --Guy Macon (talk)17:08, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
As for Guy's comments, he took a study and said (paraphrasing) "no rapes were due to wanting sex in this study of adults, therefore no one wants sex due via rape". That's a couple of steps beyond the quoted passage.
You've left out literally all child molestation and child sexual abuse which was the start of this thread.
Just because there "were no rapes in which sex was the dominant issue" doesn't take into account the perpetrator's sexuality or whether it is a risk factor.
This intentionally omits the "consenting" adult-minor relationships that asmall subset of the gay community find acceptable/advocate.
I'm not claiming that this organization is 100% right on anything. I'm not saying "I support all they do/say!". I'm saying that their position is a reasonable one. Whether they are correct or not is a different matter. Classifying that position as justifying labeling them a "hate group" when it represents less than 1% of their work is unreal/unreasonable.Buffs (talk)05:21, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Supporting that specific position as a reasonable one is certainly...a choice. We might call it one of the choices of all time, even.Alpha3031 (t •c)08:16, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
What is the definition of "hate group" that you are using, and how does it differ from the one used by the SPLC? Is the argument that targeting gay people for who they immutably are is not the same as targeting ethnic groups for who they immutably are? Also, as I pointed out above, Maajid Nawaz and the now defunctQuilliam are not currently listed as "hate groups" by the SPLC. That said, it's also worth pointing out that to characterise their original inclusion as "batshit" (ie it is completely beyond any reason and unfathomable to suggest animus towards the Muslim community) contradicts thethe views of published writers.This article, for example describes Quilliam's work thus:
Stereotypes of ‘Muslim rape gangs’ were greatly boosted by the Quilliam Foundation’s ‘grooming gangs’ report, source of the spurious but ubiquitous claim that ‘84% of grooming gang offenders’ are Asian. 62 Although framed as‘academic’ 63 and ‘evidence-based’, the report is shoddy pseudoscience.
So I'm really not sure what the point of mentioning them repeatedly when you yourself know the SPLC doesn't in any case list them as a hate group is supposed to achieve.OsFish (talk)07:24, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
- you knew before you included Quilliam in that list that the SPLC currently does not list it as a hate group
- you described the SPLC's original designation as "batshit" ie that no reasonable person would say the same thing despite knowing that other experts had indeed said similar things
- you cite an article implying critics of Quilliam's 84% of grooming gangs are Asian claim might be wrong despite knowing it transpired that Quilliam's claims were indeed quite unfounded and that official figures showed something very different
So I really don't think the Quilliam case shows anything much. Nor am I impressed with arguments that targetting people for their sexuality is so clearly less hateful than targetting people for their ethnicity that the SPLC should be considered "unreliable". The idea that sexuality is a free personal moral choice is decidedly fringe, and shouldn't inform policy here.OsFish (talk)06:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Please be civil, avoid personal attacks. and assume good faith. First, I looked up the new info on Quilliam right before I posted it, not days earlier. Despite rumors to the contrary, I do not posses a time machine. Second, neither you or anyone else making the "The SPLC deleted it so it doesn't count" argument has established that it really doesn't count. If a source admits to an error and prints a correction or retraction, thatadds to the reliability of the source. If a source refuses to provide evidence for a claim, stands by it for years, and only deletes it when forced to do so by a defamation lawsuit where they also paid out millions of dollars, thatsubtracts from the reliability of that source.
Also, while targetting people for their sexuality and targetting people for their ethnicity is vile (as is targeting people for their political views), neither justifies inclusion in a list of anti-islam hate groups. One would have to target people for their religion for that. Getting the category right is what we would expect from a reliable source. Putting groups in the wrong category and then promenantly featuring that inclusion in fundraising messages is not. --Guy Macon (talk)15:21, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
If the SPLC does not include Quilliam as a hate group, it doesn't make sense to raise the issue of Quilliam at RSN. If the idea is to make ahistorical case of broad reliability against the SPLC about that one time, under legal threat, they withdrew a classification, then the whole history of that case is relevant, including whether or not it turned out Quilliam had actually produced bogus figures, and whether other experts would have considered Quilliam to be unfairly targeting an ethnic minorities. That is, the claim that it was "batshit" (ie crazy, unfathomable) to include Quilliam in the first place should be struck, given that other experts agreed, and were proved correct in the end about a significant controversy relating to this issue, and not through sheer luck but reasoned, evidenced argument. (I'm assuming here that "batshit" is being used to mean something other than an meaningless insult.)
As for the Family Research Council, they aren't listed as an anti-Islam hate group. Maybe you have confused issues?They are listed for their anti-LGBTQ policies. My point is, I don't see why being anti-LGBTQ rather than racist is a reason ipso facto not to consider a group a hate group - an argument put forward by the Washington Post columnist you cited. As others have pointed out, the FRC's views on the LGBTQ community are not exactly tame. I'd need to see actual experts in extremism explain why the difference matters.
All these objections to the SPLC seem to be OR based on an unstated definition of hate group that differs from the SPLC's definition, although it's not been made clear specifically how. The SPLC's definition seems reasonable to me. Could you explain, with sources, the problem you have with their definition?OsFish (talk)02:50, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
For the Quilliam paper, I don't recommend to click on Kirkegaard's site but to find another copy. The Guardian article is in the "comments is free" section, meaning that it's Malik's opinion. Still, it warns against making hasty generalizations or promoting panic, that there apparently are more claims and cherry picking than evidence, about most offenders being asian. I don't see a mention of the SPLC there.~2025-32692-02 (talk)09:10, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Kenan Malik’s piece is indeed labelled opinion but he’s a well published author writing in an RS that fact checks opinion pieces and he cites the criminological literature in his piece. It’s certainly at least as robust as a Telegraph editorial.BobFromBrockley (talk)04:54, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
(summoned by talk page message). SPLC is reliable for what it publishes: its opinions, which may be due if neutral reliable sources report that their opinion is relevant. They have recognised expertise in American racist groups, but outside of that niche their opinions don't seem to carry as much weight. Clearly they are a player, not a neutral referee, so their opinions should always be attributed. In general, we should put less focus on applying contentious labels to groups and more focus on providing encyclopedic content about those groups. The facts will speak for themselves.Barnards.tar.gz (talk)11:41, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
I am fine with the consensus going against me. This isn't about "winning". That being said, certain arguments that have been made do not seem to align with Wikipedia' policies. (And of course, many do).
Can we at the very least agree that a self-published comment from Anonymous user "Concerned Troll" on a Nazi message board in not a reliable source for anything, and is not a primary source for the views of the owners of the Nazi message board?
Can we agree that even if a Wikipedia's editor does some original research and concludes that theremust have been more comments by other Nazis that we don't have any source for, that does not improve the reliability of the Concerned Troll comment?
Can we agree that any attributed claim in a secondary source that is clearly and explicitly labeled as being based only on a comment or comments on a Nazi message board are no more reliable that the original comment or comments?
Can we agree that a secondary source refusing to reveal any other source other than the Nazi comments when repeatedly asked to do so by government officials and a major newspaper should not be considered evidence that other sources exist?
Depends on what you mean. It's not a reliable primary source for Wikipedia purpose but mostly because primary sources are rarely reliable sources for us at all. It's a perfectly fine source for the SPLC itself and it's not our job to second guess our source's sources.
Irrelevant, because that's not what happened. A Wikipedia editor found secondary sources that say there were other comments.
No, absolutely not. That is directly against Wikipedia policy. We can't cite a petri dish but we can cite research based on observations of a petri dish, and similarly we can't cite anonymous forum posts but we can cite secondary sources based on anonymous forum posts. If you were right about thisBellingcat wouldn't be green at RSP.
Again, irrelevant. This is neither what happened nor would it matter if it had. The anonymous forum posts are a perfectly fine basis for the SPLC to say this even if they would not be for us. Expertise exists.
Basically, I think that this is a clear case ofWP:ONEAGAINSTMANY and am thus going to quote your own words back at you:
In a "one-against-many" dispute, you (as the one) might be upholding a Wikipedia policy or guideline against a majority that isn't following policy. If this is the case, the one prevails over the many.
The problem is that for every case where the one is upholding policy, there are at least a hundred cases where they only think they are. The newer you are, the more likely it is that you are wrong about this. Having more than one or two editors who all misunderstand Wikipedia policy doesn't happen very often, and having some uninvolved third party look at the page and make the same error almost never happens.
If you are absolutely sure that there is a Wikipedia policy being broken by multiple editors on a page, and you can quote the exact wording of the policy being violated, get another opinion. dispute resolution is a good place to start. If as a result of dispute resolution a previously uninvolved third party says that no policy has been broken, it is probably time to face the fact that the policy doesn't say what you think it says.
(Warning: This comment is entirely tangential to the topic here.)
While those are good words to quote, I think Guy missed an important caveat when he first wrote them.
There may indeed be a situation in which one editor is upholding policy against a majority who are not and does not (andshould not) prevail, and that is one of thoseWP:IAR situations which merits a subsequent update of the policy (and which usually results in such). I would also point out that this is one of the more common mechanisms by which policy has changed over time.
Can we agree that any attributed claim in a secondary source that is clearly and explicitly labeled as being based only on a comment or comments on a Nazi message board are no more reliable that the original comment or comments? - no, we absolutely cannot agree on that. Your statement here is honestly shockingly wrong coming from an experienced editor. We cannot cite a random man on the street; but we can cite a secondary source interviewing a random man on the street. To a certain extent, using theirreputation for fact-checking and accuracy to perform research on primary sources like forum postings is the whole purpose of secondary sources; in cases like that only the reliability of theproximate source matters. Without that we could never cite anything at all, because all sources could be traced back to research done by someone. And your misinterpretation of policy here allows people to use OR to second-guess any source they disagree with - you could constantly go "yes, this article says X, buttheir evidence isn't good enough, is it?" Is your argument that we could never cover message board postings regardless of the quality of the source covering it, because "well it's just message board postings?" Not how it works; the proximate source is what matters. In any case, nothing has changed since the recent RFC, and most of the objections above (including this one!) essentially consist of people saying they disagree with specific things the SPLC has said, which is not an RS criteria. The SPLC is still widely-trusted and used as a gold-standard source for hate groups in academia; nothing you're saying really challenges or changes that. --Aquillion (talk)15:39, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
^Walsh, Matt (April 3, 2019).Fine, I Am A Theocratic Fascist.YouTube. DailyWire+. RetrievedDecember 10, 2022.It does say in my Twitter bio that I'm a theocratic fascist, well because a few months ago someone sent me a message, trying to insult me, and the message said: 'hey, y'know, you should put theocratic fascist in your Twitter bio because that's what you are.'
Use of Eric Gilbertson Peer-Reviewed Survey Journal Articles As Sources For Relevant Mountain Elevations
Here is the RSN discussion for the use of Eric Gilbertson's peer-reviewed survey journal articles as sources about relevant mountain elevations (i.e:Mt. Rainier). Since I am a COI user, I will not participate in the discussion.
For the full list of articles that will be published, seeGilbertson's blog. Journals include the Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, and American Alpine Journal.
He's a connection I have in the outdoors/highpointing and knows I am active on Wikipedia, so of course he wants his surveys recognized. I understand that Wikipedia works by consensus, and I was told by you to start an RSN discussion, so I did (and let Eric know this via email, also discouraging him from starting an RSN discussion on his own work).
I don't see what the issue is if I don't actively participate in these discussions and no longer do COI edits. If you want me to completely stop engaging in any Gilbertson-related content (which includes starting discussions), I can do so.KnowledgeIsPower9281 (talk)19:58, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I believe starting this specific discussion was essential, because it would allow others familiar with the Gilbertson issues as well as those uninvolved in it to take a look at past discussions, the newly emerged source and be able to form their own view from it. I asked for details on COI in the hope it would help all of us understand exactly how you have a COI with him. I asked for details on COI in the hope it would help all of us understand exactly how you have a COI with him.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15230430.2025.2572898 article was just published on November 10, 2025 and articles on Wikipedia almost immediately started getting drizzled with this source even though the source has merely 650 or so views with zero cross ref citations and at last one addition came from author affiliated higher education institution immediately after publication.Graywalls (talk)21:48, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it should be deprecated, but non-neutral use; or academicWP:CITESPAM would be an issue; which has been an issue that persisted with that particular author's materials. I did note a handful of brand new users/temp accounts going to several mountain articles specifically to introduce Gilbertson sources into several mountain articles. If it's added as a normal course of editing process, it is likely fine, but concerted effort to shoehorn into articles for the purpose of using that source would be an issue.
I hold to the opinion that the general concept discussed in the article that Gilbertson's findings on the changed summit elevation are likely true and in the very least worthy of inclusion in the prose but I agree that exact elevation figures provided in one single peer-reviewed journal do not outweigh the hundreds (thousands?) of sources utilizing the official peak elevation. Other peer-reviewed academic articles authored by Gilbertson should be treated similarly - as material noteworthy enough of the article but not enough to be treated as the primary elevation listed in the lede/infobox. I share the concern mentioned byUser:Graywalls that there has been a semi-organized effort by COI editors to shoehorn Gilbertson's data into articles in a manner that exceeds their notability and reliability.DJ Cane(he/him) (Talk)13:23, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
In academia, Wikipedia is nearly always considered an unreliable source for the same reason we consider ourselves and otherWP:UGC unreliable, because it's UGC. However, it's highly utilized reference index. For this reason, academicWP:CITESPAM is regularly done by COI parties in a hope of getting their sources picked out and cited by other scholars in scholarly journals for the purpose of increasing citations and h-index boosting. Something like this happened with ADLhttps://forward.com/news/467423/adl-may-have-violated-wikipedia-rules-editing-its-own-entries/ I've also encountered quite a few PhD types that go around bibliospamming orWP:cITESPAM their own or institution affiliated sources not for the purpose of covering a gap in knowledge, but for the purpose of shoehorning their presence into the topic area. Unfortunately, given the history behind Eric Gilbertson's finding, there's been years long concerted effort to push his presence into mountain height referencing. We are expected toWP:AGF, but there is no requirement to continue assuming it unconditionally. It is ok for someone to cite a credibleWP:MEDRS about the application of certain medication for certain conditions through natural casual research process, but when account farms in communication with a pharmaceutical company find every place they can insert the client's product via scholarly journal citations into anywhere they can get away with, this causes a disturbance of balance. Given the history of Gilbertson advertisement over the years, this is something we need to watch closely and tread carefully.Graywalls (talk)17:08, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I would also note that many of these appear to be in press or under review (not reliable yet) and many more are in theAmerican Alpine Journal, which appears to be an enthusiast magazine rather than a scholarly journal. I am not convinced by the reliability of such sources. —David Eppstein (talk)19:54, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
As I see it, it's a significant minority viewpoint in a reliable source, and it belongs in the main body of the article to maintainWP:NPOV."Neutrality requires thatmainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published byreliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources."
RE: Published by reliable sources
The journal "Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research" seems to be a peer-reviewed academic journal of reasonable quality and is reliable on the topic of the subject matter. So I think the article in questionhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15230430.2025.2572898#abstract is a reliable source. It was also referenced in some secondary sources - I read"Outside Online".
The same logic ensures it's not appropriate for the infobox - the prominence of each viewpoint should be maintained. The NPS Rainier homepage does really put it's foot on the scale here.
@FastpackingTurtle:, I know you already replied you have no COI with Gilbertson or the subject matter inSpecial:Diff/1322909450. Do you haveWP:COI, or personally met or corresponded with any of the authors of that article? John T. Abatzoglou, Kathryn E. Stanchak or Scott Hotaling. What about any affiliation with Seattle University or any of its department, Utah State University or any of its department in any capacity?Graywalls (talk)13:01, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
WP:CITESPAM has been a persistent issue with this cluster of sources, the problem seems to be that even when marginally reliable they get overused by people connected to the source in a way which is damaging to the project overall... These aren't source that non-COI editors even seem to want to use and this discussion itself is a prime example of that... We're here because COI editors are pushing the use of the source, not because non-conflicted editors tried to use the source.Horse Eye's Back (talk)17:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I was an AfD participant. Thanks for the ping @Graywalls.
"Their findings are consistent with broader trends we have observed in our glacier-monitoring program: thinning and retreat of summit ice (and other large glacial bodies in the park) over the past several decades. The rock summit of Mount Rainier has not changed; rather, variations in the thickness of the ice cap atop Columbia Crest influence the measured high point," Beason said in an email to the Traveler.
However, he added, "[R]egarding the 'official' elevation of Mount Rainier, the National Park Service does not independently set summit elevations. The U.S. Geological Survey is the federal agency responsible for publishing mapped elevations on USGS topographic products, which incorporate standardized national geodetic data. At this time, no official change has been made to the published elevation of 14,410 feet."
It seems like both Beason(who did the melting glacier volume article) and Gilbertson (who did the melting Columbia Crest height article) are both a part of the scientific record, and those two sources agree on a good bit. Both seem to acknowledge that Columbia Crest and the surrounding glacier - the spot that was 14410 - is thinning and melting - as you put it, the "frosting on the top changed". And both agree the highest rock - the "rock summit" - is unchanged. For what it's worth,https://www.nps.gov/places/columbia-crest-glacier.htm says:"Highest Elevation (Head): 14,393 feet", from Beason.FastpackingTurtle (talk)17:38, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
Great, so then we maybe able to put that in a fine print somewhere WITHOUT the use of Gilbertson source, fulfilling the information sharing purpose while not giving in to the COI author's satiety.Graywalls (talk)14:35, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Do I have a COI with Gilbertson? I met a guy once who had been on a couple of trips with him. Anyway, I was opposed the last time this came up (believing that Gilbertson's measurements were for the most part more accurate than officially published results, but didn't meet WP criteria for inclusion), but if he can get them published in specialist sources I do think that shifts the balance in terms of considering him WP:EXPERTSPS for this very niche topic. (t ·c)buidhe18:02, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Why the USGS-recognized elevation cannot change in response to new evidence
as Mike Tischler, the Director of the USGS National Geospatial Program, has reported,the USGS does not currently collect or maintain point elevations of summits. Tischler reports: “Historically, point elevations of prominent peaks were printed on topographic maps, with the source of the elevation being manual survey. The most recent USGS example of this is a 1996 update of a topographic map originally produced in 1971, based on a field verification in 1971.” Though the USGS is actively conducting surveys using lidar technology to offer 3D elevation data for the U.S. topography, a specific spot elevation value is not official, nor does it represent a precisely measured value for something like a summit. As the USGS warns on their website, the data found by this method might not be the most accurate for alpine landscapes, as “differences between these elevations [manually surveyed elevations vs. lidar data] might exist for features such as mountain peaks or summits, and where the local relief is significant.”[18]
At least in the US case, there is no reason to discount more recent surveys simply because they are not accepted by the USGS, which all of the other federal agencies such as the NPS are more or less obliged to follow, per the sources that I have seen. (t ·c)buidhe14:51, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Gilbertson's published research papers
Gilbertson, Eric; Gilbertson, Matthew (2025). "Determination of new national highpoints of five African and Asian countries—Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Togo".Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment.doi:10.1177/03091333251401102.
He has more accepted but not published yet according to his website. IMO, that validates a WP:EXPERTSPS exemption for the elevation of mountain summits that he surveyed himself, attributed alongside other estimates that may exist. (t ·c)buidhe02:50, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
I am still concerned about Gilbertson cherry picking data points for more shock value (as discussed re: using the 1929 datum for Mount Rainier). It's clear this is less of a scientific endeavor and more of aWP:CITESPAM campaign. I hold that it can be mentioned but that utilizing the specific values in any way isWP:UNDUE until additional source material corroborates the findings. Wikipedia has no obligation to be on the forefront of this.DJ Cane(he/him) (Talk)13:34, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
It's fallacious to assume that because some new editors believe that Gilbertson is correct that means that therefore they must be promoting him because of a COI and therefore Gilbertson is spam/a bad source, compared to if the issue was raised by an established editor.
After researching the issue I'm convinced that the peer reviewed sources are a higher level of reliability for the current elevation than the USGS, which does not even officially recognize summit elevations. If you have any evidence of Gilbertson promoting sensationalism (as opposed to newspapers reporting on him) I'd like to see it. (t ·c)buidhe15:13, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with using Gilbertson as a source for many, but not all, summit elevations. Attributed, of course, and if there is another reliable (not USGS) source that disagrees cite that as well. Some summit elevations are a lot more contentious (seeTalk:Mount Rainier) and need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, but I am not seeing any claims that Gilbertson is clearly wrong about multiple summits. Not so sure that Gilbertson should always or even usually be the main source though. I see a lot of possible sources atWikipedia:WikiProject Mountains#Resources.
One thing we at the RSNB could do is to have a discussion in a separate section with the goal of arriving at a Wikipedia guideline for what to do when the peak consists of ice or snow instead of rock, and what to do with geologically active peaks that change summit elevation due to earthquakes or volcanoes. Maybe evaluate the sources listed at WikiProject Mountains? --Guy Macon (talk)15:52, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Examples of sensationalism are sprinkled throughout Gilbertson's blog and media interviews, including by conflating chatting with a former signal corps buddy as being "peer review" (1) and by undergoing his various media blitzes (most notably re: Mount Rainier) before attempting to publish in an academic journal. Additionally by using terms such as Mount Rainier's summit being "scientifically recognized" (23) as his result when no other scientist has actually corroborated his findings.
Gilberson commonly inflates the significance of his findings in media interviews and also, as demonstrated inTalk:Mount Rainier, engages in utilizing whatever datum fits to amplify the differences he reports.DJ Cane(he/him) (Talk)16:21, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't agree that it's sensationalism to speak to the media and for the record his stated reason for using the older datum was to preserve comparability with older measurements, including the 1956 survey that the USGS still uses (because it currently does not recognize summit elevations, per the above). (t ·c)buidhe16:53, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
It is not sensationalism to speak to the media, however it is sensationalism to spike the football on your supposed new discovery prematurely. Science is slow and right now the consensus of scientific knowledge is overwhelmingly against Gilbertson. Unnecessairly attempting to speed it along so you can have your fifteen minutes of fame is sensationalism.DJ Cane(he/him) (Talk)17:18, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Agree with Guy Macon —I don't see any problem with using Gilbertson as a source for many, but not all, summit elevations.Attributed, of course, and if there is another reliable (not USGS) source that disagrees cite that as well ... Not so sure that Gilbertson should always or even usually be the main source though.(emphasis mine) I understand the hesitancy to use his data, just because it's Gilbertson, but the threshold for inclusion on Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true. In my view, a peer-reviewed academic journal accepted his research, so it can be used on WP with proper attribution, just because it's new, and Gilbertson, doesn't automatically mean exclusion and disqualification of a reliable published source.—Isaidnoway(talk)22:19, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
While I agree with this in principle, the elevation of a summit is always going to be DUE as it's arguably the most salient information about it. We are doing readers a disservice if we don't include the most up to date, precisely measured estimate available. (t ·c)buIdhe18:36, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Completely disagree, exact summit elevation isWP:TRIVIA which conveys nothing of signficance about the mountain. 3,412 meters tells you absolutely nothing of consequence that 3,408 meters or ~3,400 meters does not.Horse Eye's Back (talk)18:40, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
I can see your perspective but sometimes accurately surveying the mountain means that the elevation changes enough to change which peak is the tallest in a given area or whether it is tall/prominent enough to be on a certain list that is popular with climbers. (t ·c)buIdhe19:02, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Neither of which dispels the notion that it is trivia... Theres a reason this isn't a pursuit that actual academic geologists spend much time on, it doesn't actually matter in any encyclopedic sense.Horse Eye's Back (talk)20:42, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
The issue here is not that the elevation changes over time, it's that one single peer-reviewed article (especially one the relevant authorities are blatantly not accepting at this stage) does not outweigh the multitude of other sources. We are under no obligation to be the first to break the news on this change. Additionally, climbers should be using sources other than Wikipedia to inform their climbing decisions (WP:NOTADVICE) especially in environments where small errors can be life threatening.DJ Cane(he/him) (Talk)20:44, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Is Avi Loeb a citable PRIMARY as an "established subject-matter expert" in any of the natural sciences?
WP:SPS imagines the blogs and unfiltered writings of "established" subject-matter experts can be used in limited circumstances.
Avi Loeb is an astronomy professor at Harvard. In recent years, he's become known for repeatedly and incorrectly predicting that various interstellar objects are alien spacecraft on a mission to Earth, though, asJason Wright notes he always assigns a percentage probability to his predictions"which gives him plausible deniability of the bad-faith “just asking questions” variety... It certainly gets him lots of TV time and fan mail."[19]
Lobe himself says his blog and social media are"detective stories" in which he just throws out possibilities because"the public loves detective stories".[20] According to theChicago Tribune, Loeb's scientific peers consider him"outlandish and disingenuous, prone to sensational claims, more interested in being a celebrity than an astrophysicist — not to mention distracting and misleading".[21] In an article forSmithsonian Magazine, the author reports that other scientists"chuckled" at the mere mention of Loeb's name.[22]
With that context, is Loeb "established" as a subject-matter expert in such a way that his unfiltered writing can be directly introduced as a RS?Chetsford (talk)06:30, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
It sounds like you already know based on the quotes.
I assume Chetsford is bringing it up because they're dealing with some editors who are trying to say that all of Loeb's claims should be 100% reliable and probably even included as wikivoice. They sound like they're the usual type of UFOlogist crank, though this time trying to use percentages as plausible deniability for their pseudoscience.SilverserenC07:30, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
From the NYT article: "Yet many in his own field consider Loeb a pariah. His more polite critics say that he is distracting from the horizon-expanding discoveries astronomers are making with new instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope. The more outspoken ones accuse Loeb of abandoning the scientific method and misleading the public in pursuit of fame." --Guy Macon (talk)07:31, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
So he got outspoken critics that find him distracting as well as views that you in your nonexpert personal opinion find absurd. How does it make him less of an expert in various fields? Please elaborate, thanks.Prototyperspective (talk)23:24, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
I think the main claim to reliability would be based on his being a professor of astronomy. Now regardless of this person, let us ask a "general" question. Assume someone gets tenure as a professor, does that stop them from hitting their head to a low doorway? Or something falling on their head? No. So a tenured professor who has been hit on the head (Loeb excluded of course) may say all kinds of things. No need to say anymore.Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk)08:25, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
The standard for selfpublished sources is that they gave been previously published by other reliable independent sources. But even if they meet that standard they still need to have 'a reputation for fact checking and accuracy', as with any source. There's enough reliable reporting to say that's not the case here. Outside of ABOUTSELF statements I don't see how his selfpublished work would ever be due, and it's certainly not reliable. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°11:47, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
The statements of individual scientists are usually only used for basic biographical information about themselves (WP:ABOUTSELF) that is not self-serving, or whereWP:DUE, put in context by a reliable secondary independent source (this excludes press releases and opinion pieces). Another exception isWP:PARITY when they have a reputation to counter fringe claims (rarely necessary to be an expert in a particular field to do this, it's another reporting specialty). For general information about astronomy, there are many textbooks available. Wikipedia not being a place for sensationalist pop science journalism, textbooks are often enough... For recent events like a meteorite, there usually are acceptable independent news secondary sources if they are lacking, it is an indication that the event's article lacks notability.~2025-35304-53 (talk)13:20, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Not reliable for statements made in wikivoice (“The object was a UFO”)… reliable for an attributed statement (“Avi Loeb claimed that the object was a UFO”) - however, given the fringe nature of his claims, they would beWP:UNDUE in almost all articles.Blueboar (talk)13:50, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
He should normally be used only when quoted by a reliable source. His personal views when unpublished are unlikely to be notable enough to be due as, although a subject matter expert on astronomy, his views are likely to be unusual in his scientific community. However, given his qualifications, position and publication history, they are not Fringe in the sense we usually use the term.Boynamedsue (talk)17:30, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
These Avi Loeb discussions often pop up. The answer is that he makes theories, which are testable, it is scientific method. He does not made absolute predictions. He is too smart for that, many assume he predicting something. So I don't know why he would not be a subject matter expert on the search for alien life, similar to other science projects such as SETI. --GreenC18:26, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes. It depends on the field of course. incorrectly predicting that various interstellar objects are alien spacecraft on a mission to Earth false. as Jason Wright notes he always assigns a percentage probability to his predictions "which gives him plausible deniability of the bad-faith… Please do not put false bad faith allegations in your questions that this would be just "for plausible deniability" and assume they have no genuine reasoning. This is some criticism or rather some accusation by the individual Wright. Lobe himself says his blog and social media are "detective stories" Loeb described the collective scientific process to learn more about the interstellar object as akin to a detective story where more clues are found and analyzed. Where is the problem? Loeb's scientific peers consider him Some peers dislike him. So what? Inform about the criticism where adequate as with other criticized subjects and scientists. the author reports that other scientists "chuckled" at the mere mention of Loeb's name I didn't know that! Definitely, not a subject-matter expert on anything – I didn't know they chuckled at the mention of his name. /s
The problem isn't that other astronomers "dislike" him. The problem is that other astronomers are concerned that he's engaging inScience by press conference. In that situation, "let the readers make up their own minds" is aWP:GEVAL violation. We don't need to have articles saying "Astronomers have identified this as a meteor, but one astronomer posted on his blog that there's a 4.2% chance that it could be a flying saucer".
In such cases, erring on the side of omission is better for Wikipedia. The other option is erring on the side of being gullible.
I didn't say the issue is that they dislike them. I said they have criticisms. I referred to part"outlandish and disingenuous, prone to sensational claims, more interested in being a celebrity than an astrophysicist — not to mention distracting and misleading" which is an expression of disliking including unfounded bad faith accusations and nothing more.
I wasn't saying neutrality shouldn't be kept when it comes to balance.
but one astronomer posted on his blog that there's a 4.2% 3.1 It's not one astronomer 3.2 he didn't say this on his blog but wrote scientifically robust papers 3.3 he didn't say 4.2% but that it would be less likely than likely 3.4 he never said it would be a flying saucer
As is clear, your comment is riddled with falsehoods. Please address the specific points by the number to make clear to readers which points are being addressed – or not addressed – and if so how.Prototyperspective (talk)00:09, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Are these "scientifically robust papers" self-published (e.g., on arXiv.org or his own website) or were they published in peer-reviewed journals? If the latter, could you provide a couple of citations? Thanks,FactOrOpinion (talk)00:29, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Prototype, youliterally wroteSome peers dislike him. So what? That indicates that "dislike" was an issue (although not theonly issue). You now write about his peers givingan expression of disliking, which again is an indication that "disliking" is an issue. (Also: how doyou know that their dislike is "unfounded" and/or "bad faith"? It is unpleasant, and I'm sure that someone coming out of a culture that values indirect communication [e.g., Japan] would find it extremely uncomfortable, but that expression of disliking might be 100% founded in facts and told with perfect sincerity and truth.)
Maintaining neutrality is very frequently going to mean omitting his self-published works.
Where exactly did he self-publish these papers? It doesn't matter whether it's "his blog" vs "his website" vs "his social media channels": The principle is the same.
Since when does having peers dislike you mean the person shouldn't be considered an expert anymore? This is also what I previously said. And atThe problem isn't that other astronomers "dislike" him you suggested I saw the issues raised by others as mere disliking but I admitted that some also have criticisms which is more than mere expressions of disliking. Moreover, now it seems like you changed your mind and also claim that disliking would be an issue when previously in the quoted sentence said it wouldn't be "The problem".how do you know that their dislike is "unfounded" and/or "bad faith" […] might be 100% founded in facts the quoted part is clearly a bad faith accusation. Whether or not they're unfounded is debatable but the quoted part doesn't substantiate it anyhow and that's what I was addressing and I doubt they substantiated it in any meaningful form and if they did that should be included here but as far as I can see also has little to no relevance as to whether the person is an expert in various fields.
As well as including info on these works, especially ifWP:RS cover them. This is also not tied to whether Loeb is an expert in various fields which he is.
Where exactly did he self-publish these papers? May I ask why you make assumptions without substantiating/explaining them? They weren't just self-published preprints. You can see his papers published in scientific journals athttps://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=CvQxOmwAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate and you can see 3I/ATLAS-related papers that substantiate his claims you may find absurd there which could be summarized as 'it can't yet be ruled out that 3I-ATLAS, whether largely natural or not, has some kind technological origin and there unexplained peculiar anomalies'. In any case, this isn't about the specific case of 3I/ATLAS anyway – Loeb is no less an expert in various fields and has an impressive academic record and rigor.
I suggest that you readWikipedia:Assume good faith – actuallyread it, or at least the first few sentences, so you know what my working definition of "good faith" is, and can make reasonable predictions about what my working definition of "bad faith" is.
If reliable sources cover his self-published work, then it might, sometimes (but probably rarely), be worth mentioning them.
Yes, I'm "assuming" that you're asking about the definition ofexpert inWP:SPS because you want to cite one or more self-published preprints. There'd be no need to talk about whether he qualifies underWP:SPS if you wanted to cite a non-self-published paper of his.
1. I know that policy. Here you're assuming that with a bad faith accusation I was referring to things relating to Wikipedia contributors or that "bad faith" can only relate to such. This assumption isfalse. Again, what is in the quote is an expression of disliking and bad faith accusations.
3. It's not something I want to do. Loeb is an established subject-matter expert in various fields, whose work in the relevant fields has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. The things you complained about were picked up by reliable sources outside of his personal writings so there's no need to use his self-published writings. I think self-published sources of experts are generally supposed to be avoided if possible unless for occasional due info, e.g. about more details than the same subject covered in reliable secondary sources. So if secondary sources for example report on his calculations and some preliminary conclusions he took from it, then adding a few words or a sentence or just the self-published source in addition about the technical details of the calculations can be due. Also note that he's an expert in the fields of the first stars and galaxies as well as for example in black hole physics and this thread specified "any of the natural sciences".Prototyperspective (talk)19:08, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
This is either self-contradictory (you say you don't want to cite the self-published source, but you do) or a waste of time (you're not planning to cite the self-published sources, but you just want to talk about the hypothetical situation in which someone might want to cite these self-published sources).
Maybe if I ask a completely different question, we would be able to develop a good shared understanding of what we're talking about here. Here's my new question:
Are you willing to promise today, on pain of being publicly called a liar, that you personally will neither add (including reverting other editors' removals) nor encourage anyone else to add citations toWP:PREPRINTS or any other self-published works written in whole or in part by Avi Loeb until at least 00:01 UTC on 1 January 2027?
If your answer is "no, I won't promise that", then tell me what "[Citing his self-published preprints" is not something I want to do" means. For example, it might mean "I do want to cite them, but I would never do so if other editors object" or "I do want to add them to the articles _____ and ____, but English Wikipedia editors can be somean to people who support so-called fringe theories that it makes it socially risky to tell you exactly which source I want to cite, in support of exactly what text I want to write, in exactly which section of exactly which article.
If your answer is "yes, I can promise that because I never intended to actually cite any of these in any articles, and I was just asking for fun", then we shouldbox up this discussion, because hypotheticals don't belong at this noticeboard.WhatamIdoing (talk)21:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
I'll end this discussion with you here at your suggestion my input here would be "a waste of time" if I'm not planning to personally cite Loeb's self-published writing. You didn't address the points in my earlier comment anyway.Prototyperspective (talk)22:21, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
If you want to talk about whether an astronomer is an expert, but you don't plan personally to cite their self-published writing in a Wikipedia article, then I hear that Reddit is a good place to talk about things like that.WhatamIdoing (talk)03:36, 28 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes, a Harvard astronomer is of course reliable as a source on astronomy perWP:SPS. He might have a penchant for making eye-catching headlines, but he doesn't publish falsehoods which is what we care about here.Anne drew (talk ·contribs)00:20, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Actually, when we are talking about a Harvard astronomer being a recognized subject-matter expert, whether he publishes falsehoods isnot all we care about. The key word is "recognized". To be recognized as an expert by the scientific community, subjecting your papers to peer review instead of publishing them in the popular press without review is an absolute requirement. That's why nobody considers theCold fusion "discoverers" to be recognized experts.
Please take a look atEvidence of Aliens? Harvard Astronomer Avi Loeb, published inSkeptic. Here the question is whether certain spherules are Interstellar in origin. That's a legitimate thing to research. The problem is that Loeb published his conclusions in a press release without submitting his paper[23] for peer review. That puts him outside of what scientists consider to be a recognized expert.
His paper was submitted for publication. And equating the longest-serving Chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department with cold fusion proponents is a false equivalence that ignores hish-index and hundreds of peer-reviewed contributions to mainstream astrophysics. We already have policies requiringmultiple sources orattribution for controversial claims by experts. These tools are sufficient; no need to dramatically deprecate a well-known and accomplished professor.Anne drew (talk ·contribs)01:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
"Submitted", butmore than two years later, it's still not been accepted? Academic publishing can be slow, but there is a point at which reasonable people begin to wonder whether that "submitted" note needs to be updated to say "and rejected".WhatamIdoing (talk)02:22, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Re: "equating the longest-serving Chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department with cold fusion proponents is a false equivalence"
Martin Fleischmann held the Faraday Chair of Chemistry Electrochemistry at the University of Southampton, was president of the International Society of Electrochemistry, was awarded the medal for electrochemistry and thermodynamics by the Royal Society of London, and received the Olin Palladium Award from the Electrochemical Society.
Stanley Pons was a PhD student under Fleischmann, and later became the chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Utah.
The equivalence is almost perfect: Recognized scientists who did good work that is still considered to be sound science today, who then pivoted from peer reviewed research to announcing fringe theories in the popular press as if they were established science. Nobody is questioning Loeb's earlier work on the modeling of plasma acceleration of charged particles or Fleischmann's earlier work on the Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering effect. But cold fusion still isn't real, and 3I/ATLAS is still a comet and not an alien mothership. --Guy Macon (talk)13:26, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Point taken - I didn’t know some of the cold fusion crowd were so credentialed. But the fact remains, Loeb has not been shown to publish falsehoods, and if he does publish exceptional claims, we have existing policies in place to handle that. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.Anne drew (talk ·contribs)14:02, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
I personally consider this[24] and this[25] to be publishing a falsehood. Others disagree. They look at his "Might be a comet, might be an interstellar spacecraft. The verdict is still out," song and dance and conclude that because he didn'tactually claim that it wasdefinitely a spacecraft he didn't claim a falsehood. After all. saying"In case 3I/ATLAS is a natural icy rock as they suggest, Mother Nature was kinder to NASA than expected from a random delivery of rocks by at least a factor of 100,000"[26] isn't the same as saying that he knows for sure that 3I/ATLAS isn't a natural icy rock, right? After all, there is still a 0.001% chance that NASA might be right and Loeb might be wrong... --Guy Macon (talk)15:41, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
isn't the same as saying that he knows for sure that 3I/ATLAS isn't a natural icy rock, right No, it isn't.there is still a 0.001% chance that NASA might be right and Loeb might be wrong he never claimed this and said things that directly contradict your false statement.Prototyperspective (talk)16:07, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
So you are claiming that the quote by Loeb ("In case 3I/ATLAS is a natural icy rock as they suggest, Mother Nature was kinder to NASA than expected from a random delivery of rocks by at least a factor of 100,000") is a forgery? Or are you claiming that a 1 in 100,000 chance is not the same as a 0.001% chance? --Guy Macon (talk)17:01, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Please understand the concept of calculating likelihoods according to current knowledge without precluding that our knowledge is incomplete where if it was more complete it would be much higher, specifically when making your calculations public in studies as part of the scientific process that others can find flaws in them that they can raise in papers. *Moreover, you seem to assume that "natural icy rock" is the only natural explanation.
The full quote starts with "NASA's officials should have at least acknowledged this unlikely fortune." and he was criticizing that they didn't even mention (or address) this puzzle – or nonpuzzle if you will – of the object's unexpectedly large mass.
Wikipedia shouldn't be based on the opinions, scientific literacy, and personal understandings of editors but on reliable sources and robust policies.
subjecting your papers to peer review instead of publishing them in the popular press without review is an absolute requirement. He's doing it. And he has published lots of papers in scientific journals. Your comment is refuted.Prototyperspective (talk)16:08, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Hmmm. That username and that attitude look strangely familiar. Let me check...
Has he ever been reputably published by a good press or journal on UFOs? If not, none of his self published writings on UFOs count as expert SPS. --Alanscottwalker (talk)00:43, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Your comment doesn't include any explanation and no link to any WP policy. To answer your question:yes he has – examples (and only examples):[27][28]. And he has also published papers about the anomalies in interstellar objects and the potential for them to have some artificial/technological aspects such as[29]. Also, the thread seems to be about a broader topic.Prototyperspective (talk)22:48, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
EXPERTSPS involves someone "whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." He meets this condition for astronomy. But there is no academic field that studies alien spacecrafts, so he cannot meet this condition for his discussions of alien spacecrafts.FactOrOpinion (talk)00:43, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
"field" there is not defined as "long-establishedscientificfield". Looking atSubject-matter expert linked there, that page also does not link to a wikilink or include a definition that suggests so and saysA subject-matter expert (SME) is a person who has accumulated great expertise in a particular field or topic. Loeb meets this condition, leading the world's largest systematic scientificUAP research project, having gotten lots of coverage by reliable sources, and having written several books and academic papers on the subject. Note that experts can disagree with each other and neutrality must be maintained if Loeb is cited. Moreover, "field that studies alien spacecrafts" is a flawed overly-narrow ("studies" "alien" "space""crafts") description that essentially is ridiculing the subject and moving goalposts.Prototyperspective (talk)22:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Subject-matter expert is an article it doesn't control Wikipedia policy. The policy isWP:EXPERTSPS and particularly "Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.". Loeb needs to have been published in the field of extraterrestrial life in scientific journals or by academic publishers. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°23:15, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
See prior comment"field" there is not defined as "long-established scientific field". Talk is of "experts" so "field" there refers to 'field of expertise'. Re "field of extraterrestrial life" – the relevant topic is not so much astrobiology/extraterrestrial"life". Loeb is an expert with such published works in: the study of interstellar objects, search for UAP (example), technological signatures (example,example), early stars, black hole physics, and various other topics that need more, nuanced, investigation to all list.Prototyperspective (talk)23:40, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Since Chetsford didn't point to any examples of cites ofAvi Loeb's blog in Wikipedia articles, I looked myself at the cites inThe Age of Disclosure,CNEOS 2014-01-08,The Galileo Project,Rolf Dobelli,2022 in science,Avi Loeb,Eric Burlison,Interstellar object. Most specifically identify either Avi Loeb or the Galileo Project in the source text, an exception is the Rolf Dobelli article but it's merely identifying a speaker at a conference and there's a picture of him apparently on stage. I see nothing extraordinary about e.g. the claim that Avi Loeb is involved with the Galileo Project, orThough Loeb has conceded on publishing platform Medium that the object is "most likely a comet of natural origin," he has not ruled out the possibility that it could be extraterrestrial technology. etc. Of course,WP:SPS has a note that wasn't in Chetsford's partial quote -- "Note that any exceptional claim would require exceptional sources." -- so that's already covered and requires no denigration of the professor's whole work. By the way, I notice Chetsford startedan RfC which includes Chetsford's evaluation of what Avi Loeb says and hope that all participants have been or will be notified about this specific discussion thread here.Peter Gulutzan (talk)16:08, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Any claims of even thepossibility that something represents evidence of or is the product of extraterrestrial intelligence is on the extreme end ofWP:EXCEPTIONAL, and therefore should not be cited to aWP:SPS source under any circumstances whatsoever. Such things absolutely, unequivocally require multiple high-quality published secondary sources, per the high bar for exceptional claims; without them we should not include even the smallest hint of a suggestion in that direction. Like any such exceptional claim, if it were anything but absurdly out-there belly-laughWP:FRINGE, coverage would be deafening; the absence of such coverage means that a particular claim is fringe nonsense and shouldn't be included. For such topics, primary cites to Loeb should be removed instantly on sight, and editors who persist in trying to restore them should be taken toWP:AE forWP:PROFRINGE editing. This is not a hazy or complex situation, it's red-line classic profringe editing and should be treated as such. --Aquillion (talk)21:22, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
Additionally I would point to Loeb's opinions of fields that are actually related to the search for potential alien life, where he repeatedly disparages entire fields in interviews and to the faces of SMEs in these fields because they do not entertain his exceptional claims about what he believes to be evidence of aliens (see the zoom call that included Loeb andJill Tarter). --Cdjp1 (talk)22:10, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
I'm going to say no. Recently Neil deGrasse Tyson has done the same thing with other scientific subjects outside of his specialty. Just because he has a PhD in a hard scientific subject doesn't make him a reliable source in adjacent fields.Agnieszka653 (talk)00:45, 28 November 2025 (UTC)
Scholia visualization of topics of Avi Loeb's studies in Wikidata (incomplete)
Loeb leads the research in the fields you may refer to, being the founder of the largest UAP research project, the Galileo Project, and author of a large number of studies in the field(s) you're referring to. What you said doesn't make sense as they are not "adjacent fields". Also note that the thread says "in any of the natural sciences" and Loeb is an expert in many fields.
Tyson is a science communicator with not many published studies. I couldn't find them – you could link to a list if you know of one. Loeb is a scientists with hundreds of published papers.
On the right you see a scholia visualization of the topics of the few hundred studies by him in Wikidata, a fraction of his total works.
Just understand that people you dislike and say things that are absolutely absurd in your opinion and in the opinion of a number of other scientists does not make them less of an expert. It may be difficult butWP:NPOV is a policy made so that things like this are not overruled based on subjective unfounded judgements.Prototyperspective (talk)01:07, 28 November 2025 (UTC)
Tyson is a science communicator with not many published studies. Seriously? He may not meet NPROF C1 in citations, but to claim he doesn't have many published studies is ridiculous. He has 67+ documents indexed on Scopus, including twoCosmic Evolution Survey papers with 1,672 and 442 citations and two on type Ia supernovae with ~130 each.JoelleJay (talk)20:12, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
Please read on:I couldn't find them – you could link to a list if you know of one.. Could you please link a list such as scopus.org/listsofpapers/ndtyson? As said, I can't find them and others may possibly neither. Anyway, I'll do it for you then:[30] I can't access this page and only see the first 6 items – please link to a list where one can see the actual papers. Google Scholar usually shows them but it didn't show any for Tyson. All the items I can see on that page are mere editorials like[31] or[32].
In any case:
you did not address anything I said except that Tyson has only few published scientific papers (which stills seems to be true based on the available sources that I've seen)
even if he had published 67+ partly highly-cited papers, that's a relatively small fraction compared to Loeb
Wikipedia is in the business of reflecting 'accepted knowledge'. While Loeb's UFO writings are of course "reliable" for what they say, they are generally not at all representative of accepted knowledge (and tendWP:FRINGE-ward), so are generally useless for writing encyclopedia articles.Bon courage (talk)02:02, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
[33] The editor agrees it is not an rs but says "This not necessarily intended to be a reliable source, but I stated that it was a motivation for "Groypers" regardless of it's truth"Doug Wellertalk17:20, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
Regardless of reliability, the YouTube link to the video titled"The Most Canceled Man in America (FULL MOVIE)" is likely to be in violation of theWP:COPYLINK policy, because the video's YouTube channel (@NowStreamHQ:"Now Stream - News, Politics, Tech") primarily uploads video clips from various cable news networks without any indication of having received permission to do so. — Newslingertalk17:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
Regardless of reliability, inclusion of the image would depend on the articles content. I don't see any mention of his banking records in the article, so I don't see how it's relevant. If it's relevant then there should be sources to include it the details in the article, and then the image could be added next to those details. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°20:17, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
RfC: Business Insider after switching to Artificial Intelligence
AI WRITING IS UNRELIABLE
Consistent with several recent decisions our community has made about LLM-generated writing, consensus here is that Wikipedians don't trust it at all. The Business Insider claims that humans will review the LLM-generated content but Wikipedians are remarkably cynical about this. Consensus is that anything published with a disclosure about "Business Insider AI" is (a) generally unreliable and (b) not an indicator of notability at AFD.This falls short of consensus to deprecate. Deprecation is an extraordinary measure that we take with sources that display a flagrant disregard for the truth, and it requires a strong consensus to enact.—S MarshallT/C08:56, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
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.
Option 2.5; Use With Extreme Caution. I'm not too familiar with this change. A.I. does tend to be inaccurate, but I'm not sure how this A.I. will behave. I will be going for 2.5 on balance as a result.NotJamestack (talk)10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Option 2 No issues with reliability for me, but AI-generated stories should not contribute to establishing SIGCOV. Business Insider's AI policy is that the AI will generate a draft of the story that will then be human-reviewed before publication. So I don't have any more issue with using AI here than I would using spellcheck. That said, the bigger issue for me than reliability is whether or not these stories should contribute to SIGCOV for purposes of contributing to N. IMO, they should not. The idea implicit in SIGCOV is that, if multiple slow-moving humans have devoted time to enterprising stories about X, then X must be a matter of great interest to humans. The same can't be said for AI that is hoovering up vast quantities of material and using temporal trend scoring to determine what to elevate.I don't object toOption 3 for Business Insider AI Bylines only as perGothicGolem29.Chetsford (talk)14:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC); edited 01:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 3. If Business Insider can't be bothered to write their stories, I have no confidence that their editors can be bothered to properly check them. The fact they apparently not to disclose AI use and plan to use it to distort images and videos only makes thing worse.Cortador (talk)14:59, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm changing my vote tooption 4 as per my comment below. Only tagging articles entirely written by AI isn't good enough.Cortador (talk)22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Option 4. Any publication using LLM-generated content must surely be aware by now of its inherent (algorithmically-unavoidable) flaws - most notably its tendency to hallucinate. If they are prepared to foist that on their readers, declared or otherwise (and note Cortador's comment below regarding limits to their declarations[35]), one has to assume that they simply aren't interested in content accuracy, anywhere on their website.AndyTheGrump (talk)15:06, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Option 3 for Business Insider AI Bylines. Using AI for articles will seriously affect reliablity however, it looks like per what was noted byChetsford and my own research that these AI articles will be under a AI byline and labeled as AI. So we should do what we do withWP:FORBESCONTRIBUTORS and list the AI articles as unreliable but not non AI Business Insider articles.GothicGolem29(GothicGolem29 Talk)15:12, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
No change. Their AI policysaysThere is always human oversight when our journalists use AI, and they are responsible for the accuracy, fairness, originality, and overall quality of everything we publish. The risk of AI making stuff up, when people are to be held accountable, should be treated the same as the risk of people making stuff up—e.g, we judge sources for having editorial controls or not, with organizations taking responsibility for what they publish, and that should be the same here. If they do end up publishing fabricated information, then just like any other source that publishes fabricated information, we see it and go from there. Downgrading reliability without any evidence of actual published fabrication is premature and alarmistPlaceholderer (talk)18:14, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Struck my !vote per Grayfell. I maintain that a policy allowing regulated AI use isn't grounds for deprecation, but the issue is clearly more than that. I guess I'll wait for more information before another !vote, but I could end up supporting a 3+Placeholderer (talk)21:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
No change per u:Placeholder's arguments. The argument that AI makes mistakes is similar to the argument that humans make mistakes. We don't downgrade every human-created media because of that. If the change leads to inaccuracies I'd be happy to support a downgrade but doing it preemptively seems like an overreaction.Alaexis¿question?20:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
No change for now They say that any pieces that involved AI will be clearly labeled, and these pieces can be evaluated on their own merits. I share PARAKANYAA's concern that a time-based deprecation is not workable. I am okay with considering AI bylined stuff to be generally unreliable, but I don't think this should extend to other BI content until we get a better handle on how this will effect the website in practice.Hemiauchenia (talk)22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Option 3 for content under the AI byline, or for all content if AI is also contributing substantive content outside the AI byline. --LWGtalk22:35, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Option 4Option 3 - BI isn't using AI to spend more time or money on fact-checking. Their over-worked, disinterested editorial department is not going to be doing abetter job with AI. There is no way to confidently tell what percentage of any article is LLM generated. BI has shown that they prioritize expediency over accuracy or integrity.Grayfell (talk) 03:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC) -edit: yeah, deprecation is too drastic. Business Insider was created largely as a blog fora guy who was banned for life from trading securities, and was financed bya guy who's prior claim to fame was pioneering privacy invading banner adds. It was nevergreat as journalism, but it's become so ubiquitous on Wikipedia that jumping to full deprecation would be disruptive.Grayfell (talk)20:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Option not 4 The only thing I'm very confident of here is that we shouldn't deprecate. As PARAKANYAA points out below, deprecation can't be time-gated because deprecation is an edit filter. It is a deliberately blunt instrument and so regardless of how we want to treat this situation it's inappropriate here because everyone involved acknowledges that BIwas reliable in the past.Loki (talk)06:51, 6 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 4 - Any site writing stories using AI shouldimmediately be grounds for dismissal.
Option 2 at a minimum, including Culture (which I assume applies) until it's clear how AI use is going to impact their fact-checking overall. Option 3 for AI bylines seems reasonable as well. --Hipal (talk)23:06, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 2 per previous consensus.Option 3 for AI bylines. Some editors have expressed concerns that Business Insider journalists may use AI without disclosure, but it is already a relatively common practice,Just more than half of the 286 journalists surveyed in Belgium and the Netherlands said they used generative AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT[36], there is no need to single out BI here.Kelob2678 (talk)10:11, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 4 - With regret, it's time BI was put out to pasture as a source on EN WP. Essentially it has always had dubious editorial standards and it pretty much was always more the journalist who was writing the article that the what little reliability it had came from. LLM-generated content, with its attendant hallucinations, is the last straw.FOARP (talk)10:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 2 for non-AI bylines (per previous consensus),Option 4 for AI bylines. The response from thewriters' union there does not suggest good things about how well the AI articles will be edited, if they're not even sure who's going to be editing them.Gnomingstuff (talk)08:03, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 2 (for now). AI is unfortunately here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Obviously if a source is just 100% AI content, it should never be considered reliable. But if you universally downgrade any source that relies on AI at any point in their editorial process -- assuming they even disclose it -- how many reliable sources will you even be left with? (I don't know the answer to that, but I think the list would be significantly smaller).
I'm not sure if there have been any separate discussions on how to evaluate sources that are now using any proportion of AI content. If not, there probably should be. Maybe adding a separate metric just to grade their use of AI? (Example, a numerical/letter grade based on proportion of AI content, whether human editors review it, what level of transparency they use (like noting it in the byline), etc. There might even already be a reliable source that has set up some sort of grading system like that. I can check around. But for now, I would hold off on downgrading every source that uses AI whatsoever.BetsyRogers (talk)23:13, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Option 4 this AI isn't being used marginally for grammatical errors, but it is used in a major way in their place from what I've seen. In fact, multiple articles have said that they've fired 21% of their staff because of this.
There have been a lot of RfCs on Business Insider in the past, with one discussion very recently talking about the switch to Artificial Intelligence. I don't think this is a bad RfC as a result.NotJamestack (talk)10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Cheers.From what Status writes, this includes using "A.I. tools for specific tasks and enhancements for images and video". That alone is dodgy since "enhancements" is a fancy term for "making things up", which doesn't bode well.Cortador (talk)14:56, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
@NotJamestack, can you share more details - how are they using AI and why do you think it impacts their reliability? Any examples of hallucinations that made their way into news pieces?articles?Alaexis¿question?13:02, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
@Alaexis From what I can see from the discussion I linked above, Business Insider will use ChatGPT without disclosing it to the article readers. A.I. has been know to be inaccurate, so I do feel like it will change reliability.NotJamestack (talk)14:35, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't notice the link at first. I think you'll agree that it's possible to use AI in a way that doesn't hurt and even enhances the quality. Humans are also widely known to be inaccuratesometimes. Let's wait and see whether this change produces inaccuracies - I don't think a preemptive change is warranted.Alaexis¿question?20:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
A word of warning: Business Insider themselves writes that they will,in their own words "transparently label any products or contentfully generated by AI". Emphasis mine. So if a story is partially slop, images are altered etc. they apparently won't disclose it. They also state that they will use AI to assist with fact-checking. How's that even supposed to work? AI itself is what needs the fact-checking in the first place.Cortador (talk)15:43, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
How exactly are we going to deprecate it for only post-AI stories? That is impossible with how deprecation works. To deprecate it we have to have an RFC forthe entire publication because you cannot time limit deprecation because deprecation isan edit filter.PARAKANYAA (talk)21:44, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
This RfC is about the entire publication. The question above is how reliable Business Insider is after they started using AI tool, not how reliable their AI-generated articles are.Cortador (talk)22:54, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but this would also deprecate their pre-AI articles. You cannot time limit deprecation because all deprecation knows is the URL. So this has to be an RfC on the entire history of Business Insider,or deprecation cannot be an option.PARAKANYAA (talk)23:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
WP:DEPS merely says that deprecation istypically enforced with an edit filter. The edit filter does not disallow edits but warns the user and tags the edit. So possible outcomes would be:
List BI post-AI as deprecated but do not add it to the edit filter. It's not clear to me how practically this is different from listing it as generally unreliable, but it's at least nominally a thing we can do.
List BI post-AI as deprecated; add BI in its entirety to the edit filter and accept some number of false positives (possibly it would be better to do this with a separate edit filter so we can give a custom message explaining the situation and make it easier for editors checking up on the filter to account for those false positives)
List BI post-AI as deprecated; add only BI articles written after some cut-off date to the filter (articles have the year and month of publication in the url so this should be doable with regexes). This cuts down on the number of false positives in option 2 but makes the filter more susceptible to breaking if BI change their url scheme.
Are you sure it's possible to attach a date to the filter? In other words "pre-AI" and "post-AI" require a date to make that distinction.BetsyRogers (talk)06:42, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
@Placeholderer: There are plenty of sources for BI firing staff and aggressively shifting to AI ([37],[38], etc.) and being in bed with OpenAI ([39], etc.). BI often publishes vaguely proChatGPT puff-pieces likethis without any disclosure. There's also self-citing ouroboros issue when BI generates a story from ChatGPT, which itself originated from BI, etc.
In August, BI took down an LLM-generated article for 'failing to meet standards'.[40] Taking down the article was a good thing, but they only did this after another news outlet pressed them on it. The article was fabricated. Apparently nobody is properly fact-checking these LLM articles. Wired also got taken by the same slop-monger, but Wired had the good sense topublish an article about it. Nothing from BI, as far as I can see. This isn't surprising. BI has a history of 'stealth' edits to articles without acknowledgement of any kind. This is a bad practice which damages BI's reputation regardless of LLMs. (This source mentions an example of this).
Here is an article co-written by a former BI editorial executive explaining why the track record for LLM tools in journalism is 'spotty, at best'. That source also points out that the use of LLMs requiresmore editorial oversight, not less, so they do not justify firing experienced editors.
As I said above, BI has always prioritized expediency over accuracy or integrity. This recent push is just an extension of that.Grayfell (talk)21:08, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
That incident isn't really the same thing -- it's a freelancer submitting AI hoaxes to a lot of places, basically an LLMJayson Blair, and not one of Business Insider's own AI articles (which don't seem to exist yet).Gnomingstuff (talk)08:10, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
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.
The website appears to be written and run by Adam Schrader[41], at least I can't find articles by anyone else. It may count as beingselfpublished, which would conflict with articles about living people (perWP:BLPSPS. I've added the{{Uw-coi}} template and a message to theirtalk page. This noticeboard isn't for user conduct, so there's not much else that can be done here. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:40, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
I would agree… self-published, one man “journalism” website. I would not call it completelyunreliable, but per SPS it would be very limited in how and when to use.Blueboar (talk)16:12, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
The website says the right things in its "About" and "Editorial Standards" sections, but it is still self-published and was founded in October 2025, so is unlikely to have gained a reputation yet for fact-checking and accuracy.Phil Bridger (talk)16:23, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
This seems self-published, and considering its recent history per Phil Bridger, I don't think there's enough 'longstanding-ness' to confirm its accuracy/fact-checking -!-⚝quái hoa ⚝ (contribs)11:09, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
I'm looking intoNational Day Calendar (NDC), and I suspect it's copying from Wikipedia. According to the articleKnock-knock joke,a children's game was described in 1929, cited to a book published in 1929, meaning the game presumably existed prior to that year. NDC reports that the game is from 1929. The Wikipedia article also erroneously listed a 1936 joke as being from 1934, butit was corrected. NDC still reports that the joke first appeared in 1934. Note that this is the only page I looked at. But this is in addition to a claim on NDC's Wikipedia pagecited to Business Insider (also a questionable source) about accepting money to create holidays. NDC is used as a sourceabout 60 times.Thebiguglyalien (talk)🛸19:55, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
The BI article is a distributed AP News articles. OregonLive also posted the same story[42], as did ABC11[43], and the Seattle Times[44]. I don't think it's the kind of site known for a reputation of "accuracy and fact checking". --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°20:39, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
It might not even be about that exactly, I'm having trouble figuring out what exactly the publisher of the piece is at that discussion. It looks like it is a reposting from another platform. I'm afraid I am finding navigating this particular media platform and understanding who is editing/publishing what challenging. Best.4meter4 (talk)21:28, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
It seems to me that QQ.com is like msn.com - it's an aggregator of articles from other sources. For example the first two links (for me) arefrom Xinhua andChinanews.com. Then scrolling down there are some which are labelled 广告（ad) and others from sites likeBubblebrain. So I would think anything published on QQ would have to satisfy reliability based on its original source.Oblivy (talk)00:14, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
Most Chinese aggregator type sites that have news (QQ, Sohu, Baidu, Wechat...) will host both content from news publishers and SPS content. As long the creator of the content is a news publisher or would otherwise be normally reliable it's fine, but care should be taken a SPS creator is not used by accident. This part of QQ is a bit weirder/more broken than the regular news.qq.com portion, but in this case the first line of the article says转自野狐围棋, which means "transferred from 野狐围棋 (Wildfox Go)", so that would be the true publisher.
I ran across celebretainment.com inSydney Sweeney (edit |talk |history |protect |delete |links |watch |logs |views). It looks like a blog/scraper, apparently to showcase the owner's content management system and to provide celebrity news pieces to clients' newspapers.
at a rural lakeside home that she says her family has inhabited for five generations.[1][2]
She was active in numerous sports: "I was in every single sport possible...I was on the soccer team, the baseball team, the snow slalom ski team, I was wakeboarding." Sweeney said she had a wakeboarding accident as a child when the edge of her board propelled backward and sliced the area next to her eye, leaving a permanent scar.[2]
I see 28 other celebretainment.com references in use in English Wikipedia. I don't think it should be used at all, but it's worth checking to see if the source of the scrapped content might be used instead. -Hipal (talk)19:36, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
Looks like the site is down so had to go to Wayback to even look at it. Shows that it is run bythis company which simply churns out content. No sign of editorial oversight so I would label it a blog and consider it unreliable. --CNMall41 (talk)18:56, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
Pageantopolis.com is a defunct site that I would call aself-published fansite, but I'd like a second opinion before removing it from (more) pageant articles. The self-description lists one contributor and a Yahoo email address for contact[48]. They had published many long lists of pageant appearances or winners, which don't seem to have any sources noted. They are now used in many articles on borderline topics such as one of two sources inMiss Perú 1980 andMarina Mora, the only source atAna Orillac andVanessa Holler (nominated for deletion), etc. ☆Bri (talk)22:05, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Hmm. There seem to be a lot of questionable sources listed as reliable on that page, and it even seems to confuse primary sources with non-independent sources. You would certainly have my support in revising it.Phil Bridger (talk)22:42, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
In case you needed more support, the site is unreliable and shouldn't be used for anything. I see through Wayback and it eventually defaulted to a gambling wesbite. --CNMall41 (talk)18:59, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
This was a well respected journalism site. In June 2025, it was bought byValnet and gutted to maximize profit - firing employees, reducing pay, changing focus. The new owner said: "Forget the ‘newsroom’ concept—we are a simple and honest editorial operation." A lengthy expose in theColumbia Journalism Review has the ugly lowdown. The owners of Valnet go their start in the online porn business, launching sites like Jugg World and XXX Rated Chicks. They do not have a reputation for reliable journalism. It is (probably) no longer a trustworthy source. Currently used in2,000 pages, though most of it is the old site. --GreenC17:11, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
This is the typical behaviour from Valnet. Certainly the site after June 2025 shouldn't be handled the same as it was before, as it's a completely different operation now. At best it'sWP:RSEDITORIAL per their own admission. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°19:12, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
I agree that I would consider Military.com unreliable post-acquisition.Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games have a write up on the questionable reliability of Valnet:WP:VALNET. It seems they consider all Valnet publications except for Hardcore Gamer to be either unreliable or situational. In regards to the perennial sources list, it seems thatWP:SCREENRANT andWP:POLYGON (May 2025–present) are bothWP:MREL.
Per thisTheWrap article, I find it likely that Valnet publications could be churnalism. The Military.com layoffs in September 2025, asreported here in TheWrap also raise some concerns (in addition to the CJR article you mention). I concur with @ActivelyDisinterested that given that since the newsroom staff have been let go and seemingly replaced by freelancers that the site June 2025-present should be treated differently.
After a quick perusual of their articles, here are some I found a bit concerning. I did notice that all of these were written by writers who's first article was in September or November of this year.
I reported this a few weeks back, when the Valnet acquisition was first announced and several former writers made it clear there was no more editorial control or rigor to the site.Archived discussion at WT:MILHIST. Of particular note:According to the Military.com News Guild, which is the website's union/collective bargaining unit, the new ownership are "moving away from hard news", and "has begun to publish articles by freelancers who have little-to-no journalism experience" and it's clear that has actually occurred in practice. Agree that it’s time to deprecate post-acquisition content.⇒SWATJesterShoot Blues, Tell VileRat!22:20, 28 November 2025 (UTC)
Seems like we will need an RfC. I've added a reminder for two weeks. Furthermore, is there any concern now or future about spam, gambling and porn site links, poor maintenance, etc.. given the motive of the owners and layoffs it will probably deteriorate. And do we want to drive traffic to them. If so, it can be considered a dead site and replaced with archive URLs. If that is decided, post a bot request toWP:URLREQ. --GreenC16:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
Agree that we should divide coverage into a before and after and treat as a dead site with archive URLs added where they aren't already. Pity really. PS what other business the owners may engage in is not of concern to my analysis, I believe that in general a pornographer could do as honest a job at owning a paper as an industrialist.Horse Eye's Back (talk)17:02, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
.svg)