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Distinguishing primary, secondary, tertiary material in op-eds, editorials, official blogs, documentaries

I've drafted some material on how to analyze these sorts of sources. It may be a good supplementary essay topic, if worked up properly, but many of its key points should, in distilled form, be worked into the guideline, to explain how we address these types of sources. I find disturbing the multiple statements in the thread at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Are opinion pieces primary or secondary? that come down to a belief that an editorial, or even op-ed by someone notable, appearing in any major newspaper means that the entire piece is a secondary source. That's a failure to acknowledge the difference between fact and assertion, verifiable research and subjective opinion, and amounts to a belief that "fame makes truth". Primary, secondary, and tertiary are not categoric, permanent descriptions of publications themselves (especially multi-department serial ones), nor of publishers, publication types, or media, but of specific content in a specific context. (This confusion stems from errors in WP:RS itself, where it misuses these words to imply, e.g., that newspapers "are" secondary or that journal articles "are" primary, when either may be primary or secondary depending on what content in what part of it is used to source what facts in an article here. We should address these problems separately, and soon. The confusion level across WP about these matters is thick and pervasive.)

  • Op-eds ("opinion editorials" by persons not on the publication's staff) are primary sources with regard to most, often all, of what they contain. They may be treated as secondary for clearly sourced secondary material they contain that is unlaced with opinion, hypothesis, or advocacy. If the writer cannot keep from inserting value judgements or other opinions into every step of the writing, the factual material cannot be extracted from the spin, even if sources are cited for some fact. If they do not cite their own sources, the claims in them, even if presented in a just-the-facts style, cannot be verified. Neither notability nor reputability are transferable. The publisher's own reputability as a source does not infuse by osmosis the analysis or claims made by unedited op-ed writers (this also means that they do not automatically help establish notability for anything they mention. [Selection for publication can help establish notability for the writer, but that's not germane here.]

    An op-ed in the form "[Intro opinional statement] [Bunch of facts and their sources, with any opinional material clearly separated from the factual material] [Advocacy-laden conclusion]" can (not "must") be used (cautiously) as a secondary source for the factual material, and a primary one for the writer's opinion. However, its citation quality as a secondary source is low, even if the writer is a notable expert, because it's not subject to the kind of editorial process that a normal article would be even in the same publication, including bias revision, fact checking, etc. It may also be a low-quality primary source, depending on what it's being used for, even if it's necessarily a high-quality primary source for what the author's own opinion is. Op-eds date quickly, and should be treated as entirely primary sources if things have significantly changed in the topic area to which they pertain, most often a socio-political issue.

    It may be encyclopedically useless in some cases. Example: Some op-ed piece from a non-notable person whose credentials cannot be checked, who is writing about the "likelihood" that hostilities between North Korea and the West will lead to a third world war, cannot be cited on Wikipedia, no matter how reputable the publisher, as evidence for something like "...but others are concerned that these hostilities will lead to a third world war", per undue weight policy. The writer's random-schmoe opinion, which may have been published only for its excellent, poignant wording, is not encyclopedically relevant. An obvious demonstration of this is that if a news outlet publishes some obscure terrorist group's manifesto, they are in fact publishing an op-ed, but that does not confer one iota of reliability upon the claims made by the group, nor any notability upon something they rant about.

    When judging the reputability of the author, consider the reputability or identity of an organization the views of which they are officially representing in the piece. Do not equate the reputability or identity of the organization with those of the writer: A junior policy analyst may produce an inferior piece for a thinktank that otherwise has a high reputation for reliability; a departmental spokesperson may not accurately reflect the views of an organization's leaders; the chapters of a widespread organization may operate with a high degree of autonomy and not have any official position that all branches adopt uniformly. Never attribute to an organization an op-ed or similar statement by someone associated in the source with the organization only for identification or credential-establishment purposes. Misattribution of individuals' writing to organizations is another form of undue weight. Op-eds should be attributed to the author, not the publisher, unless the publication itself is what is relevant in the context.

  • Editorials (by publication staff) are similar to op-eds but written in-house and subject to more editorial control (though less than that of the publication's typical articles). They are primary sources in general (their entire point is to express an opinion). They may be treated as secondary for genuinely secondary material they include, and their need to be specific as to their own sources decreases with the reliability of the publisher and the writer(s), as well as with the level of editorial control they were subject to. The more akin they are to a regular news piece, the more they may shade into a secondary source.

    Caution is still required, because the level of editorial control is usually indeterminate, and it varies a lot. Whether an editorial has a high, middling, or low citation quality depends on the editorial (and sometimes authorial) reputability, and the context, but it's rarely high-secondary because of the nature of the piece, and the lower editorial control than is exercised over regular articles. They may be high-primary on social issues, but never on highly technical matters in any field.

    Three problems that op-eds often have usually do not apply to reputable publishers' editorials: 1) indistinguishable commingling of facts and opinions/allegations/spin; 2) opining on topics a non-notable writer (or notable one in a different field) didn't adequately research; 2) insertion of conflict-of-interest material or irrelevancies. One feature that many op-eds have that editorials usually do not is authorship by subject-matter experts. (Three obvious exceptions are when the topic of the piece is news journalism; when the editorial material is topical, in a section written by a staff member who is a subject-matter expert (e.g. a veterinary department written by a prominent DVM); and when the editorial is by a guest-writer expert and is about their field.)

    Beware treating an editorial as statement of the position of the publisher as an entity. If an editorial represents such a statement it will usually say so explicitly, or the publication history of the publisher will indicate that when it publishes editorials they are intended to be taken this way. It is always safer to write "An editorial in the Madagascar Times stated ...", not "The Madagascar Times stated ...". Editorials are attributed to the publication in most cases, unless the authorship is relevant.

  • Official blogs: Much of the above also applies to news sites' official blogs, which most major newspapers, magazines, and news programs now operate as an outlet for additional staff writing and for the provision of background, followup, and other supplementary material to the main stories they run. Some of them are subjected to a lot of editorial control, but this seems to be rare. Usually there's some (often retroactive), but it may be by a completely different editorial staff with different criteria and less reputability, if any, as an editorial body. The authorship may also be in question for some material (e.g. it may really have been written by interns, but published under the official byline of the staffer for whom they work). Either way, news outlets' official blogs are always subject to editorial policies that the writers are expected to adhere to, so they are not equivalent to self-published blogs. Being non-SPS doesn't confer reliability, it just escapes one particular reliability disqualification.

    As with the above two categories, these are rarely of high quality as citation sources, and are primary sources except where they contain, and clearly distinguish, proper secondary material from primary material. The nature of the content has to be examined on a case by case basis, as it may vary greatly, from personal anecdotes, to fully-developed and -reviewed stories that there wasn't room for in the main publication, to supplementary educational material written for children (always a tertiary source even if well-researched), to just forum-style post-and-discussion material between the writers and the readership. If you're lucky, sometimes it's "here are the sources for my article on the main site". Attribution for official blog material is to the credited author, like a regular article, unless posted by an editorial role account, in which case it may be attributed to the publisher, like an unsigned editorial.

  • Analogous publications: Not only news organizations publish op-eds, editorials, and in-house blogs. Most of the above rubrics apply pretty evenly across other types of publication, though reliability level can vary by reputability of publisher, narrowness and neutrality of the publisher (an academic journal is more reliable in this particular sense than an advocacy organization), topic (a government department may be reliable for census or motoring fatality statistics, if not for the accountability of its work in gathering them, but may be unreliable on a social issue that reliable independent sources indicate it may have addressed inadequately), and editorial process (an op-ed in a peer-reviewed science journal may be subject to little review at all, and "peer-reviewed" applies at the specific article level, not "rubbing off" on every word in the publication; a political or literary magazine may offer op-ed space only to prominent figures, and subject their submissions to a high degree of quality control).

    Non-print media like television and news radio usually do not label editorial and op-ed material as such. Consequently, content has to be examined carefully to determine what sorts of claims it is making, on what authority. Frequently, many "documentaries" are in fact editorials, or are a mixture of editorial (primary) and genuine documentary (tertiary) material. Documentaries that come to novel, extraordinary, or polemic conclusions are primary sources for them; those that come to, or give undue weight to, fringe science hypotheses are not reliable sources (except for very narrow things, e.g. identifying advocates of the fringe science). Quasi-documentaries with a strong reality TV influence, having a behind-the-scenes or follow-our-journey character, are primary sources, like live news reporting. Those that focus on the producer-narrator's views or that of previously published works on which they are based, are video op-eds (or editorials if they represent a production organization's views). Where these materials are not primary, they are almost uniformly tertiary, and should be used with caution, because tertiary video sources, exactly like school textbooks, may gloss over important details, overrepresent a particular view as more widely accepted than it is, have unknown inclusion criteria for what information will be encompassed, and date quickly. An exception is when a video production co-documents something, comprehensively for the medium, along with a published volume, and the combined works are primarily analytical, interpretative, and/or synthetic, not just summarizing, of previous research; in this case, the video version is a secondary source, albeit of lower quality as a citation than the book edition.

Hopefully this analysis can be recycled in some way, after whatever massaging and squeezing it needs.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:31, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I've just started reading this, and I'm already concerned about this sentence: "They may be treated as secondary for clearly sourced secondary material they contain that is unlaced with opinion, hypothesis, or advocacy."
What is this supposed to mean? Imagine that I've got an op-ed from a highly respected general-news source that says, "America should stop wasting money on annual screening mammograms for low-risk women with no symptoms because a systematic review by the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration proved that these tests aren't saving lives, probably because treatment for moderate stages of breast cancer have improved during the last half-century." Imagine that I want to write "Screening mammograms no longer save lives" (if you're curious, early detection only saves lives if you are able to cure early-stage cancer but not middle-stage cancer; when you can cure both, then early detection stops saving lives). The bit about mammograms not saving lives is clearly sourced secondary material, but it is also "laced with advocacy". Is that usable? What if the sentence merely repeated the conclusion without advocacy, e.g., "A systematic review by the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration proved that screening mammograms do not save the lives of low-risk women with no symptoms, probably because treatment for moderate stages of breast cancer have improved during the last half-century, and the "opinion, hypothesis, or advocacy" was in a different paragraph? Would the op-ed now be okay? Or must the entire op-ed contain no opinion (in which case, it's not really an op-ed any more, is it?)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Sorry this is long; you encapsulated a lot of stuff to essay-think through in two rather superficially but really pretty different questions. In the first case it would be usable as an attributed opinion to the writer: "Screening mammograms no longer save lives, according to [whoever]". It's a bold claim that glosses over a lot of details, and seems to actually misrepresent the actual research, so WP can't advance it as a statement of fact. Depending on the context, it might not be encyclopedic to include it at all (maybe yes in a medical policy article or section, probably no in a facts-about-cancer-treatment article/section)

In the second, it would be usable attributed to the Cochrane Collaboration, but you probably wouldn't say it that way, but phrase it more like the source did, e.g. "According to the Cochrane Collaboration, screening mammograms have little impact when it comes to low-risk women with no symptoms", preserving the gist without overgeneralizing. You'd still want to attribute it, to C.C. (though citing the op-ed, per SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT), because it's a specific claim based on recent research and [at least with the one source at hand] there's no evidence anyone thinks this research is correct other than the unusually neutral editorial writer, who is passing it on to us like a human signal repeater. The material is technically secondary, but of very low quality as a secondary source, due to lack of editorial control. The problem with op-eds is we cannot ever be certain the writer is independent of the subject, and the publisher doesn't rewrite them much or at all. The respectability of the news publisher doesn't matter much with an op-ed; they're running it because they think it's interesting and will sell newspapers, not because they've had a peer-review committee go over the claims the editorialist is making, to fine-tooth-comb them. Many op-eds contain outrageous statements, and they're run on purpose to generate debate. I was just today going over one at Talk:Race (human classification) and the various counter-editorial reactions to it; rather illustrative case of this sourcing issue. It would be totally wrong for WP to cite that op-ed's conclusion/premise as unattributed fact, though various bits of secondary material in it (e.g. whose prior research influenced this argument) could be treated that way.

With editorial material, it all basically comes back to the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources" maxim - the overall reliability of the source (on all the criteria that add up to reliability) is expected to rise commensurate with the weight of the claim. We use editorials and op-eds all the time for common-sense claims, but attribute or directly quote them if we use them at all for more dubious ones. Same goes for recent research that hasn't been reproduced and verified by others. The disappointing disproof this year of the "discovery" of gravity waves in background radiation in the universe, from the first moments of the Big Bang, is a huge case in point. But lots of secondary material in the same paper isn't in question; even some of the primary material isn't dubious (e.g. description of the methodology used) only the data and the conclusion.

Anyway, given a new book on breast cancer research from an academic publisher, or a literature review in a major journal, which factors in the Cochrane work with other research, and comes to the conclusion that the consensus view in the field is that what Cochrane Collaboration said is correct, with that we can probably just state the Cochrane conclusion in our article as a fact and cite the book/lit.rev. and move on (I'd probably also cite the original C.C. paper, but not the op-ed, which wouldn't add anything to the reliability of the claim). Medical articles tend to be stricter about this sort of thing, per WP:MEDRS, than many other topics. If it were an article section on the production of a movie, or whatever, the stakes for being wrong about some detail, like how many days it took to film some scene, are much lower than passing on wrong information about life-threatening illnesses. Technically, we should treat all primary sources evenly regardless of topic, but in actual practice there are too few editors patrolling source usage to ever ensure this is done well in every case. So we set out a "!rule" (this is a guideline after all) that sets a high bar, and it gets "enforced" mostly when the stakes are high. It also matters, because many aspects of primary vs. secondary source usage are matters of actual policy (real rules) when it gets to WP:NOR matters: Only reliable (i.e. not low-quality) secondary sources can be used for WP:AEIS claims. That's why we wouldn't want to use an op-ed at all to source something like this medical claim without attributing it (facts to the research team, politicized conclusions to the writer). By getting at the "advocacy" aspect of op-eds – a form of AEIS, especially evaluation and interpretation, often short on meaningful analysis or synthesis – I'm showing how the AEIS part of the policy applies to such material in more concrete terms. Not everyone is sure what "evaluation and interpretation" are but most of us know politicizing, polemics, persuasion, and activism when we read or hear them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:40, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you need to spend a lot longer thinking about this. Here are a few points that you will need to think about.

  • "Screening mammograms no longer save lives" is not an opinion. It is a statement of fact. The statement may be wrong, but it is still a statement about a fact. It is not a statement of values or opinion. (The opinion part is the claim that a values-based public policy should change as a result of the alleged fact.)
  • The fact that the statement concerns is more than "technically" secondary; it is the result of a systematic review of the scientific literature, which is unquestionably secondary.
  • Almost half of your response is about issues of DUE weight, which are irrelevant to the question of whether Source X is sufficiently reliable to support Statement Y. (DUE is about whether Statement Y should be included at all, not about whether Source X is good enough to support it.)
  • The author of an op-ed is always identified (else you could not know that it is an op-ed, i.e., written by someone who is not on the paper’s editorial board). It is very easy to determine that Chris Conservative is independent of anything about mammogram promotion. In fact, I would hard pressed to think of anyone who would truly benefit from fewer low-risk women undergoing screening mammograms: the net savings probably amount to a couple of dollars per taxpayer per year in the U.S. (a savings that would be seen as slightly lower public debt, not as a few bucks in someone's wallet), and everyone else loses revenue (fewer medical device sales, fewer jobs, fewer profitable surgeries, fewer needless chemotherapy sales, fewer patients to recruit for clinical trials, fewer volunteers to sign up for charity fundraisers, etc.).
  • I disagree with your assertion that "We use editorials and op-eds all the time for common-sense claims". We actually discourage opinion pieces for statements of fact, regardless of whether those statements are about where the Sun appears to rise each morning, or how how many days it took to film a scene, or whether George Bush’s tax policy caused the Clinton boom years, or whether mammograms save the lives of average-risk women. Unless the author is a bona fide expert in the subject, then opinion pieces are poor choices to support statements of fact. WP:RS says that opinion pieces are "rarely reliable for statements of fact". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

RS/AC

Earlier today, a discussion I was in reminded me of an edit I'd intended to make for some time. It seems like it should be fairly straightforward as a clarification - if something applies to "most," it should also apply to "many" and any similar qualifier. However, it was then suggested that (because of my participation in that same discussion) it looked like I was trying to influence that discussion. I suppose that's fair enough, so I won't pursue this myself and would like to present it for the editors here to evaluate. Thanks, Sunrise (talk) 05:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Seems more like a WP:WEASEL matter. "Many" has no objective definition, unlike "most" (>50%) or "all". If we mean "multiple", "at least 17 {{as of|lc=y|2015|08}}", or whatever, then we should just say without hyperbole what we mean. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:16, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
′if something applies to "most," it should also apply to "many" and any similar qualifier′ does not make sense when the "most" concerns consensus, i.e. general agreement amongst a group. "Many" is absolutely vague, it can be interpreted (and argued) as any number that is "more than a few," and may be used to indicate a significant minority, as in, "while most agree, many do not." A statement of consensus requires a clearly predominant majority - "most agree," not "many agree." It is troubling that such an edit was attempted; as a participant in the discussion mentioned by Sunrise, it is hard to see how making less specific the most directly relevant, and frequently cited, guideline in that ongoing dispute can be viewed as incidental or helpful.--Tsavage (talk) 06:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Using data from academic papers on genetics

Is there any guidance on the use of the data in academic papers? At Genetic studies on Serbs I noticed some text stating " "E1b1b1a2-V13, 20.35% and 19.80%. The frequency of this haplogroup peaks in Albania (24%)" and discovered that "E1b1b1a2-V13" isn't mentioned in the source.[1] I raised this at Talk:Genetic studies on Serbs and was told that I needed to look at Conversion table for Y chromosome haplogroups to learn that it's called V13 in the source. Which for me (who started looking into this because of some number changes) makes it really hard to figure out what is going on. I still couldn't find "peaks in Albania (24%)" in the article and was told it's from a table. I don't think we should be using raw data in this way, but can't find guidance about it. It's obviously easy to misuse raw data, one reason not to use it. Doug Weller (talk) 15:41, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd start by asking why we have an article on 'genetic studies on Serbs' in the first place - from a quick look at the article, most of the sources seem to be covering a much wider population. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
At first blush, I don't see anything inherently or intrinsically wrong with using values tabulated in a published paper. There's not an intrinsic problem with coordinating/consolidating/converting nomenclature for consistency within an article, either—as long as the equivalence of the terminology is unambiguous and uncontentious.
That said, we need to be extremely careful about WP:WEIGHT and WP:SYN when we pull out and draw attention to individual figures from a much larger publication. Context is important. I'm not going to go poking around the Wikipedia articles in question, but I am well aware that there are various and sundry ethnic tensions in that part of the world, and we (Wikipedia) need to be very careful not to draw (or imply, or invite) inferences and conclusions not closely supported by the cited work.
(Incidentally, I'm a bit hesitant about the terminology in parts of the above question. I would tend to reserve the term "raw data" for the sort of information that is buried in the supplementary material, a public data archive, or just not published; "raw data" is the stuff that is subsequently processed, consolidated, sorted, tabulated, or winnowed for presentation in a paper. Data presented as a display item (figure or table) in the body of the paper don't tend to deserve the epithet "raw"; it's been cooked.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:30, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, of course you're right about my misuse of the term "raw data".Cherry-picked? Doug Weller (talk) 18:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
(after e/c:) Andy's point makes a lot of sense. This is a bad editorial practice to begin with, because we are not supposed to synthesize from primary sources when editing Wikipedia in general, but rather we are to rely on reliable secondary sources. If there are not reliable secondary sources on the article topic, perhaps we can do without this article entirely until there are, if ever. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC
(ec) I suppose you'd be looking for the WP:OR policy:
  • WP:PRIMARY has "...a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment..." – usually tabular data (or any other type of "raw" data as you call it) in a research paper is "primary source" material in this sense.
  • The policy continues: "...Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation..."
    • Here the problem could be (don't know for sure whether it does, not really knowledgeable in the area) that the tables (after conversion etc) for instance may seem to indicate that "The frequency of this haplogroup peaks in Albania (24%)", but no reliable source draws this conclusion in so much words (maybe geneticians would consider the apparent peak insignificant, or that it falls within standard deviation margins, or they just don't think this notable enough to write half a line of text about it, or whatever other reason why such conclusion isn't written out): this is not so much a "correctness" concern, as a notability/relevance concern to dedicate more text to it in a Wikipedia article than can be found anywhere in a reliable (secondary) source. If the basic MO of Wikipedia is to summarize secondary sources, it is certainly not to boost primary source raw material into supplementary text.
  • And a further continuation of the policy: "...A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge..."
    • (again without really knowing whether it applies, but from your words it seems to be so): seems to be so that two or three parts of a source (or from different sources?) need to be connected: if that is all quite straightforward for making conversions "any educated person" could make, OK, no problem, but if "further, specialized knowledge" is needed, as you seem to indicate, then there is a problem: whether that problem is called WP:OR, or lack of WP:V or WP:UNDUE, doesn't matter, these policies all come down to the same: the Wikipedians who wrote the article went somewhere where they shouldn't go, and the article text should be reduced to something more relevant and/or readily understandable. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Non-peer-reviewed news and commentaries published in academic journals

I'd like to insert the following in WP:SCHOLARSHIP: "Non-peer-reviewed news and commentaries published in academic journals (as common in, e.g., Science and Nature) should be treated as per WP:NEWSORG." Your thoughts? fgnievinski (talk) 03:08, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree. They one the less are not of the same authority as actually peer-reviewed articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I am agreeing with the present wording as the best general statement. It's perhaps a little too absolute, but the modification goes much too far in the opposite direction. DGG ( talk ) 05:19, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 August 2015

Plamoottil (talk) 08:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC) Pristolepis malabarica (Gunther, 1864) is a percoid fish described by Albert Gunther from Mundakkayam of Kerala, India.Later it had been considered as a synonym of Pristolepis marginata Jerdon (1849). In 2013 Mathews Plamoottil collected many specimens of Pristolepis malabarica and Pristolepis marginata from their type localities and Plamoottil & Abraham (2013) proved that Pristolepis malabarica is a distinct species. Its pre orbital is without serrations; pre opercle with vertical limb roughened or serrated;at the angle of pre opercle 3 or 4 small spines present; opercle with two sharp bifid spines; lateral line scales- 19- 23/ 8- 11; scales from lateral line to ventral fin- 8 1/2- 10 1/2; dorsal fin spines- 14; anal spines- 3; dorsal fin rays- 11- 12; anal fin rays- 8- 9.

 Not done as you are in the wrong place, since this page is only to discuss improvements to the page Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this on the talk page of the relevant article in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 11:54, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers 2015

FYI: Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers is a list of scientific publishers who will publish any paper, regardless of quality, for a processing fee. In some cases the predatory publishers uses a name that is similar to or identical to the name of a legitimate journal. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:52, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

It's already described in the present page, see bottom of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. fgnievinski (talk) 00:16, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

MEDRS and primary/secondary

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

There's a fundamental issue at WP:MEDRS of confusing the concepts of "low- vs. high-quality source" (reputation of who is making the statement) with "primary vs. secondary" source (is there editorial control independent of who is making the statement?). I'm trying to clarify this at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Proposed copyediting, including resolution of conflicts with NOR policy and not meeting with much success. Perhaps someone else can do a better job (or maybe I'm wrong, and WP:PSTS policy needs to change and say "except in medicine, where press releases are secondary sources").  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:21, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, you are wrong -- an organization, which states a position based on its meta-research is making an evaluative claim, and the primary sources for that claim is the underlying research, not that statement in the "press release". The press release, itself, is a primary source for the press release, but that is true of any document. Thus, if the topic (as in title) of the article is for example, "1970 Statement of World Health Organization on Mammography" (note I just made that article title up), secondary sources for that would be other publishers that cover it, but if the topic (article title) is "Mammography" the 1970 Statement could very well be a good secondary source. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:46, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
SMcCandlish has been claiming that position papers put out by major medical and scientific bodies are "press releases" and primary sources; not ideal secondary sources. This is spillover from the e-cig mess. Jytdog (talk) 16:30, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I see that we let random groups of editors decide what are "reliable sources."

This comment just got collapsed on the talkpage of the IRS/Noticeboard. Ostensible reason was that it violates WP:NOTAFORUM. See what you think.

If the NPOV expanded guideline WP:WEIGHT is not to be overlooked we need “reliable sources” and cannot simply trust WP editors’ opinions on matters of “commonly accepted fact.” But that also includes commonly accepted facts about what are reliable sources. To quote directly from policy on WP:NPOV: “Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.” Okay, fine, but finding the prevalence of belief among Wikipedia editors (or that subset who regularly turn up at the RS noticeboard) is very often exactly how we arrive at what we CONSIDER reliable sources, to begin with(!) In what world does that make sense?

There are places where this little conundrum has been noticed, and my favorite place where WP tries desperately to avoid the contradiction in epistemology, is at WP:FRINGE, a guideline referenced at WP:NPOV. There, the editors of that article take on the problem in a bold statement and footnote (8):

“A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. It must be shown that reliable sources treat the journal as a respected peer-reviewed journal. (footnote) A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. It must be shown that reliable sources treat the journal as a respected peer-reviewed journal.”

Aha! So, in order to tell if a journal is reliable, one must find out if it is peer-reviewed, and treated as a reliable peer-reviewed journal in other reliable peer-reviewed sources. Thus, (to compress this thought) we simply need reliable sources that tell us (directly or indirectly) what other reliable sources are. If we have a reliable source that treats another source as reliable, we’re home free.

Or not. For then we’d need a reliable source for which sources are reliable in judging primary sources to be reliable. And then a reliable source for that judgment. You go down this rat hole infinitely (it’s turtles all the way down), until finally you give up and go here to the RS noticeboard and find out what the consensus is, of random guys who show up here. Hmmm. That’s what we do for “yesterday’s news from Gaza” or whatever. The only alternative is simply to weight things for NPOV based on mass circulation numbers of the news source (but what do we do for CNN?). If some example of tabloid journalism has large circulation numbers, we have to trust it (or give it NPOV “weight”) to that circulation extent.

By the way, the tabloid journalism article I notice is lacking in citations about the reliability of tabloid journalism, which it claims is low. And is heavily tagged as lacking citations. So indeed, how do we know reliability of tabloids are low? What reliable sources say they are low, and (more importantly) HOW DO THEY KNOW? The lack of citations and presence of citation-needed tags in this article is telling. Or at least I think it is. Funny, too. ;’p

The alternative for science matters is to look for “commonly accepted textbooks” (if only we had a method of telling what those are—sales? But undergrad physics texts do better than graduate student texts). In medicine, where we’d like to do things at a level a little sooner and finer than it takes to get into medical student textbooks, Doc James and his crowd over at WP:MEDRS are trying to get editors to recognize secondary reviews over tertiary ones, and says that “The best evidence comes primarily from meta analysis of randomized controlled [human] trials.” This is often true, but not always. Where is the citation for it? In a reliable source? Would it be a source that uses meta analysis of randomized controlled trials? No? Then just what is the Gold Standard of Medical Truth by which this statement stands? (My reservations about this are on the basis of an academic background which I cannot prove to you, and which officially doesn’t count here anyway).

Why (in light of official policy) do we have nameless anonymous WP editors, whose medical knowledge we do not trust, poking about the journals for “meta analysis of randomized controlled trials”? Do we only trust Doc James to do this? Why? Is it the “Doc” in this username? Does that help? Here is some irony: one of the papers cited in this very policy which now gives primacy to meta analyses [2] also gives some weight to Eysenck’s criticism that meta analyses of trials in medicine can give an impression of weight which hides bias, and sometimes the (supposed) reliability of meta analyses is NOT borne out by single very large trials, which are taken by the medical community as better. (For example, the meta analysis on magnesium for heart attacks looked good, but the ISIS-4 trial showed it was no good, so now we don’t believe it.) At this point, you’re all saying: “But that’s a matter for the particular subject”. Wrong. It’s a matter for the whole WP:MEDRS policy, which shouldn’t be trying to do what it is trying to do, without admitting that WP’s RS policy is mocked thereby.

The point here is that we’re not (or should not be) prepared to argue the fine details of evidence-based medicine, as policy for reporting medical "fact" on WP, when the very wonks who push for evidence based medicine in the real world, cannot agree among themselves. Are we? I’ll be glad to argue it, but do any of you know anything about it? WP can report on points of view about this, but ultimately to go beyond that, must trust in the expertise of its editors (Doc James, I see) to see that that some point of view about “truthiness” (which is proxied by “reliability”) is translated into WP:MEDRS policy. This goes double in other areas: WP obviously is relying on some kind of expertise or judgment of its editors about sources, to resolve WP:RS questions here, about yesterday’s news, on a case-by-case basis. So why not just admit this? An editor (or group of interested editors) that can be trusted to tell if a source is itself “reliable” can just as easily be trusted to tell if the source’s statements of fact are reliable. No? One question about "reliability" ("likely to be true" = probably Truth) is no different than the other. Can I hear from those who think they are different? SBHarris 02:16, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is a very difficult philosophical question, which has no clear answer. Tnis problem is the reason that universites and other learned bodies exist; they generate a kind of learned consensus. Some would say that they stifle progress, others that they have their heads too much in the clouds. The system has worked for a long time though. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:35, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
I tried raising a similar issue about Newspapers and their RS here.[3] I'm sure readers will form their own opinion if they read through the thread, however, my own is that many editors were unwilling/unable to disclose how they assessed newspapers as RS or not.DrChrissy (talk) 09:46, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
A lot of Wikipedia's procedures make sense when the alternatives are contemplated. Suppose WP:RS was rewritten in some way that would avoid the problems claimed above—how would the result work for contentious topics? Would better articles be produced? Would they be better because the text was more likely to be correct, or because the text was more pleasing to its supporters? The crucial issue concerns WP:FRINGE topics where hundreds of editors are dissatisfied that they cannot tell the world about some favored view—the wonders of homeopathy, the blessings of the gurus, the benefits of astrology, that the Earth was created 5 thousand years ago, and so on. The fundamental problem with discussions framed as above is that there is no concrete issue to consider. Some publications would be reliable for some things, but not for others—a brain surgeon might be trusted for views on brains, but not on climate change. By the way, the OP appears to be from this comment by Sbharris at WP:RSN—an attribution should be included. Johnuniq (talk) 10:51, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
This is off-topic, but I didn't know diffs could be wikilinked. So thanks, Johnuniq, for teaching me something today. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:39, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
Me, too, but offhand, how do you generate the "special number" for a diff? I've been having to use the link to diff https address: like so: [4]. Pipelinking a diff directly is a neat trick and useful. SBHarris 01:05, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
You see the "diff=677249536" parameter in the diff you linked? Use that number. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:22, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Pls see Help:Diff for {{Diff}} and friends. fgnievinski (talk) 02:00, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia, already recognizes that Wikipedia is not a reliable source and some of the what the OP suggests points to the systemic reasons this is so -- but what the OP does not do is trace it to its root. At base, Wikipedia relies on the individual editor to relate in articles reliable information from reliable sources - group policy and guideline seek to guide the individual editor in that endeavor, and the correction, if any is needed, is left to the individual editor and the group. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:28, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
Apparently discussion is happening at WT:MEDRS#I see that we let random groups of editors decide what are "reliable sources". fgnievinski (talk) 02:04, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Comment It is a great shame this discussion has been taken over to a Talk page patrolled by a group of editors often with very fixed ideas on the reliability of sources, and often wishing to impose those ideas in other subject areas. This extremely important discussion should by discussed by the community at a more widespread forum.DrChrissy (talk) 16:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

"fact-checking", proofreading, relying primarily on press releases

See [5].

Few publications have any "fact checkers" at all any more. And essentially none have proofreaders - they depend utterly on computer "spill chuckers." And almost all rely extensively on press releases - often editing them to a minimal extent.

Ought this new fact of life impact this content guideline?

Perhaps we should state something on the order of:

"Reports written by local named journalists not relying on wire service reports and press releases, and published in major newspapers, are generally considered acceptable sources for claims of fact about an event. Where possible, material based substantially or primarily on press releases and wire service accounts should treated as less reliable, and the wire service or press release should be noted if known. Headlines, especially ones which are sensational in nature, are written by headline writers, and are not necessarily a good indicator of the content submitted by a journalist, and are not 'reliable sources' in themselves, other than for indicating that such a headline was published. Current newspapers and magazines are rarely fact-checked, and more rarely proofread."
"Books from publishers deemed to be 'reliable source publishers' in a specialized field are still likely to be proofread and verified."

Or something on those lines? We can no longer say "reputation for fact-checking" with a straight face. Nor make any comments about proofreading for that matter. And with studies showing the outrageous prevalence of stories based on press releases and being minor rewrites of wire service copy, the old theory that "major newspapers with awards are really good sources" is no longer true. Collect (talk) 14:31, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

? Your dissmissal of wire services seem much more overblown than is the usual case on Wikipedia. Remember wire services were basically created by those "local" publishers to provide good journalism. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:03, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Read the sources - many of the wire service items are from press releases. Collect (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
I see a couple of problems with this proposal. First of all, "proofreading" has never been a criterion in determining reliability, so the emphasis here on human proofreaders vs. computerized spell checkers seems irrelevant. More to the point, I'm not sure the text is accurate. High-end national magazines are still fact-checked ("highly regarded national magazines are one of the last bastions of rest for a mind perpetually on guard for BS, for they employ fact checkers."). Many high-quality newspapers do as well (Der Spiegel employs a fact-checking department of ~80 people, for example). I see no grounds for prioritizing "local named journalists" over reputable wire services such as the AP, Reuters, or AFP, and no grounds for denigrating the latter category of sources. Finally, the issue of headlines has been discussed extensively and separately and should not be tacked on as a rider to this proposal. MastCell Talk 16:14, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Please read the sources I provided - the fact is traditionally the proofreaders were the final ones to catch errors of fact - the proofreaders were considered the most knowledgeable of all the employees. And the issue is that of "press releases" dominating not only the local newspapers, but also dominating the wires as well. I apologize if I did not make that aspect of the multiple studies I cite crystal clear. By the way, the studies did look at headlines - with devastating rigour - baseball now officially has an "amphibious pitcher." And this is not my opinion, it is the result of multiple scholarly studies and books. Collect (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
I've read the sources you provided; I just don't agree with your interpretation of them, nor do I agree that they support your proposed changes to this guideline. Most of the studies you cite are specific to the biomedical sciences, where science by press release has long been recognized as a problem. In fact, we recognized it as a problem, awhile ago, and addressed it specifically in the relevant sourcing guideline (see WP:MEDPOP). There was also an effort to extend these higher sourcing standards, which deprecate the popular press in part because of the press-release issue, to the sciences more generally. But that effort was shot down. If you're interested, though, we can revisit WP:SCIRS; you were quite vocally opposed last time around, so if you're on board now it would have a better chance of becoming an approved guideline and thus tackling the press-release issue which you've raised. MastCell Talk 19:48, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
The strongest scholarly articles are on scientific topics, or course. Some of the sources I gave are more general, as I am sure you noticed. You have good searching skills to find comments from 2010 for sure. In that discussion I stated I had no problem with MEDRS, as I am sure you would have noted to prevent this looking like a personal attack on me, or course.
I do not support promotion of "fringe science" so that argument was a straw man raised at that discussion - the issue was whether Wikipedia should self-determine an official "Scientific Point of View" such that " If mainstream secondary sources in a field do not consider a detail or opinion relevant, it may not be appropriate to cover it at that article."
The proposal also stated that consensus determined whether material in a peer-reviewed journal was "relevant" to a topic, which seems to run contrary to a position that the primary concern was whether the material comes from a peer-reviewed journal, not whether the material agrees with what the editorial consensus on Wikipedia says is required. This I found intrinsically troubling in 2010 - the peer-reviewed journal requirement is a significant barrier to fringe views, but having Wikipedians then being a further filter on whether the material should be in any article seems contrary to logic in any science.
I also demurred on "Statements and information from reputable major scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources." as encouraging an actually weaker source than we allow elsewhere - whilst we should actually use stronger criteria for solid science articles, IMHO.
If I recall correctly, Tryptofish had reservations, MastCell felt the criteria should more heavily promote primary sources ("Several editors who (to put it kindly) have difficulty with forest-tree discrimination have gotten hung up on the idea that primary sources are never permissible, and that all sourcing has to be review articles. Occasionally this has resulted in sprees where large volumes of appropriate journal citations have been removed "per MEDRS". Obviously, no policy can be proofed against misuse, but ideally we should emphasize the role of primary sources"), Cla supported work by non-scientists, (which I did not agree with), ImperfectlyInformed found it was specifically more exclusionary than proper, Atren opposed it as being a reincarnation of WP:SPOV, Heyitpeter opposed the proposal as not defining "science-related", Ludwigs2 called it WP:CREEP, Jrtayloriv said the current guidelines and policies were sufficient, Wnt said "What we have here is the worst "special case" misinterpretations of Wikipedia policies driving out all the good precedent.", in short the proposal was supported fully by only a handful - with even MastCell expressing reservations. So much for the en passant remark implying that I "vocally opposed" a proposal.
The problem is that newspapers are in poor economic shape, that journalist employment is down over 40% in the US in a matter of a few years, and is still headed down, and that the number of straight press releases used, and releases sent through wire services, is way up, along with use of such material by all media.
And it is that problem with which Wikipedia must eventually cope - the "clickbaiting headlines" are now used by major publications as well as the lesser ones. This has nothing to do with proper peer-reviewed journals, and primary or secondary sources - it has to do with lazy media taking pre-written copy which may or may not accurately reflect fact. Collect (talk) 20:29, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Is there something more fundamental going on?

Just an observation... I note that we currently have no less than three seperate threads that center on the question of what is and is not a "reliable source" in medical related articles. So what's really going on? Is there a dispute at MEDRS that is spilling over to here? Blueboar (talk) 21:16, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The discussion is, quite correctly, more general than just MEDRS and should be kept on a general page to include the maximum exposure and number of contributors to such an important topic. And Yes, I think there is a spilling over of some specific topic guidelines being incorrectly imposed by some editors on other topics.DrChrissy (talk) 21:21, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
I wouldn't be surprised if this is in part spill-over from the recent e-cigarette controversy in which (as I understand it without having taken part in any of these discussions) some e-cigarette proponents claim that as recreational rather than medical devices they should not be subject to MEDRS while some e-cigarette opponents claim that because e-cigarettes have been pushed as a treatment for cigarette addiction MEDRS should be applied strictly to the articles on them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:32, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
It is also a spill-over from MEDRS being imposed on articles which are not MEDRS related - e.g. Foie gras.DrChrissy (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
See the diff here.[[6]]DrChrissy (talk) 22:16, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
And similarly at Magnetoception here.[[7]]DrChrissy (talk) 22:22, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

1936 King George Penny

Resolved

I have a 1936 GeorgIVS V DEL CRA:BRITT:OMN:REX FID:DEF:IND:IMP Penny I think it is Bronze about the size of the American half Dollar Source Photos — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:98A:4200:45EB:A845:9F71:1100:E14B (talk) 16:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

This is not a place to request help. If you need general information about something use the reference desk. If you need help with editing, request it at the Teahouse. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Determining sources for article titles

In light of discussions, like Talk:Hurts Like Heaven and WT:manual of Style/Capital letters, how do we determine which sources are reliable? In this case, "like" as a preposition has been uppercased by many sources. Then users disregard existing MOS:CT and WP:NCCAPS in favour of sources. Or maybe "like" is not a preposition at all? --George Ho (talk) 06:16, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

We determine reliability for article titles the same way we determine reliability for everything else - Generally, we deem "reliable" any source that is written by an author who is respected in his/her field, and published by a reputable publishing outlet, and edited by a staff with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. So... I would say that if a source is reliable for article content, it would be reliable for article title determination.
Of course, reliability is not an "on/off" switch... there are degrees of reliability (with some sources being more reliable than others). We can and do give more weight to higher quality sources than we do to sources of lesser quality. And there is a huge amount of wiggle room depending on context and topic.
Ultimately, reliability is determined through consensus... those sources that we (as a community) agree are reliable are deemed reliable, and those sources we agree are unreliable are deemed unreliable.
On the broader issue of conflicts between source usage and MOS guidance... I will just note two things: a) The main MOS itself notes that exceptions can be made to it's guidance (something that is often forgotten about in debates) b) WP:Ignore all rules is policy. So... (again)... Ultimately, if there is consensus that a specific word should be capitalized in a specific article title ... we can do so - even if MOS tells us that normally we shouldn't. Making an exception in a few articles does not negate the guidance for other articles. Blueboar (talk) 12:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Can a specific Topic Wiki become a reliable source?

Hi Guys, I'm interested in learning more about reliable sources on Wikipedia. My question is about public Wiki-systems based on a specific topic, are there samples and how could a community of a specific topic become a reliable source. It's a general question, so I don't wanna provide the topic as it should be a neutral discussion. The community uses a current MediaWiki and is open to develop editing standards which would be required to make the system a reliable source. At the moment the Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ is in place. But this could also be changed. Thanks for the feedback! --huggi - never stop exploring (talk) 03:03, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Since you're asking a general question, I'll give you a general answer: no, usually not. The license is completely unrelated afaik. If the wiki is "public", which means "anyone can edit", it would be self-published which would mean it can usually not be used as a reliable source in Wikipedia. How to enhance your own reliability by whatever standards you choose, that's your choice, and I can't see how Wikipedia could be of much assistance there. Specifics may apply, but we weren't talking specifics, were we? --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:56, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Let me add to that: There are some truly terrific special-purpose wikis out there. While Francis is absolutely right that they cannot be directly used as reliable sources, if they were to adopt and enforce the same reliable sources standard as English Wikipedia uses, then the sources given for particular bits of information on that wiki could often be used to verify the same information here on Wikipedia even though the wiki could not be directly used as a source. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:42, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
... and/or webpages on some of these websites can be used as convenience links for free content: this happens a lot, even semi-integrated in Wikipedia, e.g. scores:Main Page (for the IMSLP website), choralwiki:Main Page (for the CPDL website), etc. Note however that these websites do use the MediaWiki software, but are not fully "public" (can't edit without registering). Didn't mention at first while there are a lot of specifics (including which content it is about) that need to mentioned for such websites. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:39, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Reliable Source

When it says that "other wiki's, and this one or not considered a reliable source" does it mean the Wikipedia in general? Or does it take into account with other things like the Minecraft Wiki. RMS52 Talk to me 06:59, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

It is taking into account other things like the Minecraft Wiki. Basically, things that let random people contribute are not reliable sources. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Wrong information!!!

To whom it may concern my name is Eva D.Jones Young in my bio you have me as being KO in a fight with one of the female fighters from Germany I was never KO we fought to a decision please correct your mistake!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:C04C:8970:E8DE:9637:D583:8C78 (talk) 03:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

→ Wrong venue. Post at Talk:Eva Jones. Put {{Request edit}} above your request. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I have started an RfC on whether "in popular culture" entries are "self-sourcing" or, conversely, require a reference under Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources.

The RfC is at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, so discussion is centralized there. Comments are welcome. Neutralitytalk 23:56, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Comicbookmovie.com

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Comicbookmovie.com. A WP:Permalink for it is here. This source has affected a lot of articles, and this discussion is important. Flyer22 (talk) 20:30, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Dave mattocks Drummer

Hi Just want to point out in your article about Dave mattocks there"s no mention in the article that he Played and recorded with Bill Nelson"s Red noise? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.107.190.214 (talk) 14:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

RfC announce: What does Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) cover?

There is a request for comments at [ Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#What does MEDRS cover? ].

At issue is whether the lead paragraph OF WP:MEDRS should remain...

"Wikipedia's articles are not medical advice, but are a widely used source of health information. For this reason it is vital that any biomedical information is based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and that it accurately reflects current knowledge."

...or whether it should be changed to...

"Wikipedia's articles are not medical advice, but are a widely used source of health information. For this reason it is vital that any biomedical and health information is based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and that it accurately reflects current knowledge."

This has the potential to change the sourcing policy from WP:RS to WP:MEDRS on a large number of Wikipedia pages, so please help us to arrive at a consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Updated Bio for Denis Ryan

This is not the place to request article creation. Please follow the instructions in the first paragraph of Articles for Creation — TransporterMan (TALK) 17:48, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

DENIS RYAN


Born in Newport, County Tipperary, Ireland, Denis immigrated to Toronto in 1969. He formed the critically acclaimed Irish- Canadian folk group Ryan’s Fancy in 1970 with Fergus O’Byrne and late Dermot O’Reilly and moved to St. John’s Newfoundland in 1971 to attend Memorial University where he graduated with a degree in Folklore. Denis and his family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1980 and have been residing there ever since.

Denis Ryan’s career has spanned more than 40 years. He has performed all over the world, appearing in over two hundred television shows in both Ireland, USA and Canada , including 78 TV shows with the Ryan’s Fancy Tommy Makem syndicated series. The group also had a national TV series on CBC in 1976. Other TV shows included Ryan’s Fancy on Campus in the late 70’s and early 80’s, also on the CBC. They recorded 13 albums. In early 2011, Ryan’s Fancy released their 40th Anniversary Collection.

Songs that Denis made popular in Ireland and Canada in the 70s and 80’s include, Newport Town, Mulchair River, Logy Bay, Sweet Forget Me Not and Now I’m Sixty Four. Denis’s version of Dark Island and Let me Fish off Cape St. Mary’s were to many the group’s most popular songs, and became Denis’s signature pieces. As a singer, he has performed for former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, US president Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth, and has sung with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

In 1983, Ryan’s Fancy disbanded and Denis has since been working in the Investment Management business. He is involved with numerous community projects including serving as the national chairman of the fundraising committee of the Darcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies at St. Mary’s University, and was also on the Board of Governors for St. FX University. In 1994 he received an honorary degree, Doctor of Letters from St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Denis was the founder of Nova Scotian Crystal, Canada’s only hand cut mouth-blown crystal manufacturer. Denis recorded various solo CD projects, including Mist Covered Mountains, Newport Town, Here and There, and Cape St. Marys.

In the mid 1990’s, Denis hosted the CBC TV Series “Up on the Roof”. Recently, Denis played the role of a Judge in the Trailer Park Boys movie “Live in Ireland” In October 2015, he hosted a TV documentary about the well known Canadian painter Tom Forrestall.

His youtube commentary of the Irish banking debacle “ Irish Wanking Bankers” has gained millions of views worldwide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2nA2szz8dY

“Enjoy the journey, the destination looks after itself ” — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.65.224 (talk) 17:36, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

BBC and other sources

Alas, BBC (even BBC Science) does not fact check material any more - they run with press releases just like everyone else. [8] gives some of the bad news about the print media relying on press releases. It is just too expensive to have expert fact checkers around on staff in these lean days for the media. Collect (talk) 22:04, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

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