User:FactOrOpinion/Draft SPS RfC

This RfC is to determine whether the current explanation of "self-published" in WP:SPS matches the consensus interpretation of "self-published," and if not, to figure out what the consensus interpretation is.

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RFCBEFORE discussions took place here (a disagreement about whether material published by GLAAD is self-published), here (a more general discussion of what "self-published" means), and here (an RfC: "Should grey literature from advocacy groups and other similar orgs always be considered WP:SPS and therefore subject to WP:BLPSPS?"). But debates about the interpretation of "self-published" go back much longer than the RFCBEFORE discussions. For example, these 2020 (here and here and here) and 2021 discussions circle around many of the same issues.

Notes from the RFCBEFORE discussions (hatted below) is an attempt to summarize key issues raised in the discussions above; you may want to read that before responding to this RfC. Some RfC choices refer to "no barrier" materials, "publisher itself" materials, and "traditional" publishers. The RfC text provides a couple of examples to explain the meaning of each term, but if the examples don't make the meanings clear enough, there's more info in Notes from the RFCBEFORE discussions.

RfC questions

WP:SPS explains the meaning of "self-published" via a link to self-published, examples in the body of the text, and a footnote stating Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content, where that note includes additional examples of self-published material and a few quotes from sources that mention self-publishing.

Please choose among options 1, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d, selecting the option that best represents your view about the current explanation of "self-published." If the best option corresponds pretty well but not exactly, just say how you'd tweak it.

Option 1. The explanation of "self-published" reflects current consensus and provides sufficient guidance most of the time. Assessing the footnote characterization's three key features — the (in)existence of a reviewer, a conflict of interest, and validation of reliability — is generally straightforward, it makes sense to characterize "self-published" in terms of these features, and the examples are consistent with this characterization. If you have suggestions for minor changes to improve the text, please say.

Option 2. The current explanation doesn't reflect consensus and/or is problematic in some other significant way(s). The explanation should be revised to reflect that:

a) Materials are self-published if there is no barrier to one or more persons publishing whatever they want (e.g., social media posts, vanity press books, preprints), perhaps by paying some entity to publish, print, or host it. The person(s) might hire an editor to help them, but the editor cannot block publication. Everything else is not self-published.

b) Materials are self-published if they're either no barrier materials or they're materials about the publisher itself (e.g., marketing materials, "about us" text), where the latter includes material with an organizational author. Everything else is not self-published.

c) Material from "traditional" publishers (e.g., newspapers, books from a publisher like HarperCollins, peer-reviewed journals) is not self-published, unless it's either no barrier material (such as reader comments on a news article) or publisher itself material. Everything else is self-published.

d) Other. Please say how you'd characterize the kinds of materials that are and aren't self-published and/or say how you think the explanation should be revised.

Note: this RfC is solely about WP's interpretation of "self-published." It is not trying to assess whether a source is reliable, independent, primary, biased, etc., or whether its use is due or needs to be attributed, as these aspects are distinct from whether the source is self-published.

Notes from the RFCBEFORE discussions

Sorry if this feels too long to read (though it's a lot shorter than reading the preceding discussions!). People raised lots of issues, and this is my imperfect attempt to capture the most salient. I've tried to remain neutral in the sense of including people's varied perspectives; however, specific views below may not be neutral, as people sometimes had strong views.

Some editors distinguished among different categories of publishers:

• Organizations such as newspaper and magazine publishers, television broadcasters, non-vanity book publishers, publishers of peer-reviewed journals, record labels representing lots of artists. Some people call these "traditional" publishers, characterizing them as being in the business of publishing.
• Organizations such as advocacy groups, universities, learned societies, think tanks, corporations, international non-governmental organizations, intergovernmental bodies, museums, foundations, and political campaigns. Some people call these "non-traditional" publishers, as publishing only serves their main mission instead of being their business itself.
• Governments might be sui generis. They have huge variations in size, differ both across and within countries, and they publish quite diverse types of materials (e.g., hearing transcripts, legislation, edited books, court documents, hurricane advisories, regulatory guidelines, info about government-funded healthcare).

Depending on how you interpret "self-published," a single publisher might publish a mix of self-published and non-self-published material. You might also conclude that some publishers have an arm that functions like a "traditional" publisher and another arm that doesn't (e.g., a government's publishing office versus its defense department, a professional society's peer-reviewed journal versus its advocacy arm). There is no agreement that "non-traditional" publishers and governments should be treated differently from "traditional" publishers.

There seems to be consensus about the self-publishing status of some kinds of publications:

• Materials like the following are self-published: personal websites, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs), social media posts, wikis, preprints, reader comments on websites, music/games released under the creator's own label, internet forum posts, vanity press books, patents, personal podcasts, individual Substacks, a live-blog from a journalist, Forbes.com "contributors" material, Kindle Direct Publishing books, user reviews, a paid "promo" in a newspaper, and personal Youtube videos. There is no barrier to the creator(s) publishing — or paying someone else to publish, print or host — whatever they want, even if it's sometimes removed after the fact via post-publication moderation (e.g., a tweet that's removed for violating X's terms of service). Sometimes the author is one person; other times, two or more people are authors (e.g., co-authored research). In most cases, there is no editor, and if there is an editor, the editor cannot prevent publication. (In the RfC, I called these "no barrier" materials for ease of reference, though that term wasn't used in previous discussions.)
• Most material from "traditional" publishers is not self-published. No barrier materials are an exception (e.g., a newspaper article is not self-published, but reader comments on the article are), and there might be a few other exceptions (see below).

On the other hand, there is no consensus about whether the following kinds of material are always/sometimes/never self-published, and if it's "sometimes," what features distinguish the self-published materials from the non-self-published ones:

• Material from non-traditional publishers and governments.
• Material where the author is an organization rather than a natural person.
• Material where the content is about the publisher itself, even if it's edited by someone who can block publication, and even if the publisher mostly publishes non-self-published material. Examples include marketing material on a company's own website, advertisements (where a newspaper or TV station effectively serves as a vanity press), a politician's campaign material, annual investor reports, "about us" text, advertising rate info, information about staff, and information about employment with the publisher. There may be some disagreement about which things are in this category (e.g., does it include technical information about the company's products?). (In the RfC, I've called these "publisher itself" materials for ease of reference, though that term wasn't used in previous discussions.)
• Material authored by someone who owns the media company that publishes the material, where that company might be considered a "traditional" publisher.

The word "publisher" can be interpreted in more than one way. Someone might or might not call a "host" (e.g., a social media site) or a "printer" (e.g., of a dissertation) a "publisher." "Publisher" could mean "any entity that publishes," or instead be limited to "an organization in the business of publishing." The word "author" can also be interpreted in different ways. "Author" might mean "the person(s) who created the work," or instead be used in a way that includes organizational authors. For material published by an organization, someone's interpretation may depend on whether the employee who wrote it is named. In a discussion, different people may interpret the same word differently.

Dictionary definitions of "self-publish(ed)" include:

• "issued directly to the public by the author rather than through a publishing company" (Collins)
• "to publish (a book) using the author's own resources" (Merriam-Webster)
• "to arrange and pay for your own book to be published, rather than having it done by a publisher" (Cambridge)
• "to publish or issue (one's own book or other material) independent of an established publishing house" (Dictionary.com)
• "publish (a piece of one's work) independently and at one's own expense" (Oxford American)
• "publish by oneself or with one's own money" (American Heritage)
• "That is or has been published by oneself; chiefly spec. (of a book or other work) prepared and issued for distribution or sale by the author" (Oxford English)

In the definitions that use "author," it's ambiguous whether it's meant to include organizational authors or only natural persons. Some definitions highlight (1) whether the author pays for the work's publication, some highlight (2) whether the author uses a "publishing company" or "established publishing house," and some highlight both. Although (1) and (2) intersect, they're not the same; for example, if material is written by an employee and published by the employer, the material is not self-published according to the first (unless you treat the employer as an organizational author), but may be self-published according to the second. None of the dictionary definitions explicitly mention anything about a reviewer, independence/conflicts of interest, or validating reliability.

In reasoning about what is or should be considered self-published, people drew on diverse considerations, and a single person's reasoning often involved several considerations. Below are additional facts/opinions/questions that various people introduced. A single paragraph may include conflicting claims from different people:

a) Implications: The meaning of "self-published" has significant implications for which sources can be used for WP content, especially for content about living persons, though of course even if a source isn't self-published, its use still has to meet other standards. BLPs currently include content sourced to materials that some people consider self-published (e.g., material published by advocacy groups, universities, and governments); is this because some editors are ignoring policy, or does it mean that those sources actually aren't self-published, or does it mean that the SPS explanation is unclear? We need consensus on the meaning of "self-published" so we can figure out whether some WP content needs to be removed. We shouldn't change the meaning of "self-published" just because some people want to keep certain content. Some are concerned that limiting the interpretation of SPS to no barrier materials creates a BLP "minefield." Many sources are identified in WP:RSP as "self-published." People may want to browse that in thinking about their own interpretations (e.g., do you think a given SPS designation is correct? do these give us insight into what the consensus meaning of SPS is?). If we end up changing the consensus meaning, we'll need to edit RSP to reflect it.

b) Overall explanation: The many debates about what is/isn't self-published show that the current explanation doesn't work. People regularly cite the WP:SPS footnote and/or WP:USINGSPS in discussions of whether a given source is/isn't self-published, and those two characterizations differ. Some would like the essay's characterization to replace the one in WP:SPS, and others disagree. Others prefer yet another characterization. The characterization is overly broad, and some (or many) things are characterized as self-published when they should instead be characterized as non-self-published. The characterization is overly narrow, and some (or many) things are characterized as non-self-published when they should instead be characterized as self-published. We should use a dictionary definition, not "wikijargon." Dictionary definitions are easy to apply to some kinds of sources (e.g., books, music), but WP editors use many kinds of sources, and it may be unclear how a dictionary definition would categorize those other kinds. Outside of WP, people often use "self-published" only for no barrier materials.

c) Reviewer: Depending on the source, it may be hard to know whether material is reviewed by someone, and if so, whether that reviewer is in a position to block publication. Some assume that "non-traditional" publisher have employees who serve as reviewers.

d) Conflict of interest: COI is distinct from bias. How do we assess whether a conflict of interest exists? Is one of the interests always "reliability" (which WP never actually defines, though it is linked several times to a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"), and if so, what is the other interest that might or might not be in conflict? For example, is it the interests of the reviewer's employer, and if so, how do we determine what those are? Does a reviewer always have a COI when checking content about the reviewer's employer, but seldom otherwise? Is there always a COI if the author and reviewer both get paid by the same entity? If "conflict of interest" remains in the characterization, should it be linked to the mainspace COI article?

e) Reliability: It may be hard to know whether a reviewer is assessing the reliability of the material; for example, a reviewer might instead only be checking things like grammar and organization. Whether self-published material is likely to be reliable than non-self-published material depends in part on one's interpretation of "self-published." Also, the reliability of a source depends on the WP text sourced to it. Even if self-published sources are less reliable, the characterization conflates "self-published" and "reliable," when a source might be one, the other, both, or neither. Policies highlight the presumed overlap of self-published status and non-reliability in several ways. For example, this is why most SPS cannot be used as sources, and why the EXPERTSPS and ABOUTSELF exceptions exist. WP:SPS appears in a section titled "Sources that are usually not reliable," the current characterization refers to the lack of an independent editor "validating the reliability of the content," and an early ArbCom conclusion said "A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking ..." (A bit of history: that text was introduced into WP:RS in 2006, and although there was text in WP:V about self-published sources at that point, there was no attempt to define "self-published," and the examples were limited to no barrier materials. The first text about SPSs was introduced into WP:V earlier in 2006. The first text about SPSs was introduced into WP:BLP in late 2005, and there too, the examples were limited to no barrier materials. The current WP:SPS reference note statement + examples were introduced in 2011. It was initially a footnote and only became a reference note in 2023.)

f) More on reliability: Sources might be creative work (e.g., music, games, fictional books/TV shows/movies, poetry). Most of the time, they're probably used as sources for material about their own content, so it's often not critical to assess whether they are or are not self-published (i.e., even if they're considered self-published, their use would often fall under ABOUTSELF). Still, the current characterization doesn't work for them, as they're generally not sources in which reliability would/could be assessed, and thinking about what would lead you to say that a creative work is (or isn't) self-published may be helpful in thinking about how you interpret "self-published" more generally. It's also unclear what it means for a reviewer to validate the reliability of things like opinion pieces and interviews.

g) Other features: In assessing whether something is self-published, some people consider who is responsible for distribution and marketing, and who is responsible for legal matters such as copyright, liability, licensing, and contracts, though the legal responsibilities might vary by country.

h) Overall review process: Some think that an organization can be assumed to have a sufficient review process based on features such as size and positive reputation. Others think that whether an organization has a sufficient review process cannot be assumed, and it has to be demonstrated more explicitly (e.g., by an explicit editorial structure).

i) Examples: The examples would provide better guidance if some of them were removed (i.e., they're not examples of self-published material), or if some other examples were added (e.g., there should also be examples of material that isn't self-published, additional examples would better illustrate where the border is for self-published / not-self-published), or both.

Other things people mentioned, not about the characterization or examples of "self-published" per se:

• The reference note includes a few quotes from sources, and depending on the RfC results, it may be time to update those.
• It's OK to leave the source quotes in a reference note, but the characterization should be moved into the body of the WP:SPS section.
• We might think about whether there should be other changes in the WP:SPS text. For example, should the EXPERTSPS text be modified to allow a group to qualify as "expert" in its field if academic and/or mainstream sources regularly treat the group as having expertise? (That may already be consensus practice, or perhaps people don't consider these to be self-published.) Should WP statements sourced to EXPERTSPSs always be attributed?