Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources

User Generated Content should be partially allowed, with an accompanying source.

User Generated Content can be unreliable, but it's not always unreliable or even wrong. It may be a good thing to allow fact-checked User Generated Content to be used as a source. In particular, it may be important culturally, because many cultural phenomenons are not covered by traditional sources or unbiased sources. thekingpachy (talk) 10:47, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

No need. Whatever you used to fact-check should be used instead of the unreliable source. --Yamla (talk) 11:16, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Also sources don't have to be unbiased, see WP:RSBIAS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:33, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

There's quite enough spam and AI generated rubbish on the web already without Wikipedia making it easier for them. This is just not needed. NadVolum (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Pachycephalosaurus Wyomingus, what made you suggest this? Sometimes the details matter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

nothing really, its just that that rule was made in a different time, and user generated content can be reliable for cultural themes. we should consider partially allowing user generated content thekingpachy (talk) 09:51, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Can you give us a few examples of user generated sources that you think should be allowed? Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

memes, cultural phenomenones, things that are subjective (like video game opinions, as video game journalists are often paid by companies to give a better review and may as such not be a good representative of the cultural opinion of the game) thekingpachy (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

No no no. Wikipedia is not Yelp. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:13, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

i mean specifically to gather opinions on subjects

i dont mean for factual statements thekingpachy (talk) 12:28, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

The reason why we don't allow this is because it can be used to support virtually any position. You seem to be interested in gaming, so I'll give you an example related to that. I could claim that many gamers enjoy the graphics of Game X but dislike the storyline and cite this claim to a post on Reddit. However, another user could then make the opposite claim and cite it to a YouTube video. That's the problem: not everyone has the same opinions. To determine broader views like this, it's best to stick to polling conducted by reliable sources. — Anonymous 12:40, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

yeah, and thats wy it should be partially allowed, to help back claims up or show multiple sides. simply user generated content alone is never enough, so some kind of reliable polling is always useful. despite this, game critics are not really a good representative of the popular opinion of a game, as the companies are often paid to give favourable reviews thekingpachy (talk) 13:52, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

No, this would not be helpful. If specific sites or game critics are being paid to give favourable reviews, they would no longer meet WP:RS. --Yamla (talk) 14:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that they're saying the game critics are getting paid. However, Astroturfing and Native advertising exist, too, so some of those "ordinary users" are likely paid, too.

Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth has an explanation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

All else aside, the usual argument for things only citable to non-WP:RSes applies: If something that occurred in a user-generated source is worth including, there will be actual WP:RSes covering it anyway. I mean you say that you want fact-checked User Generated Content to be used as a source - but, assuming the "fact-checking" takes the form of a WP:RS covering the UGC, we do allow that? For instance, if something happens on Wikipedia, and is covered in the New York Times, we can then cite the NYT to cover it - that's the fact-checking. But obviously a user-generated source can't fact-check itself; we need a WP:RS with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy for that. --Aquillion (talk) 17:50, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

If something that occurred in a user-generated source is worth including, there will be actual WP:RSes covering it anyway. What about when its a reliable source citing a user-generated source? What if, in your example, The New York Times reported, "according to the Wikipedia article 'foo'…", or "as Wikipedia's article on 'foo' notes…"? May we cite the NYT's reporting in this instance? Need we include an in-text reference to Wikipedia being the crux of the Times' reporting? Is it just verboten on its face? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 11:27, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Is a source uses Wikipedia as a source then it's unusable, see WP:CIRCULAR ("Also, do not use ... publications relying on material from Wikipedia as sources"). This is a seperate issue from user generated content. The NYT and over publications use user generated content as sources all the time, by their use of social media. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:32, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Okay, poor choice of example, given we have our own explicit policy thereon. I generally meant, what if the NYT published reporting using any UGC site's material/claims, such as an article saying "according to the TV Tropes page 'foo'…", or "as Atlas Obscura's page on 'foo' notes…"? May we indirectly or circuitously cite the UGC via the NYT's reporting? Need we include an in-text reference to the UGC being the basis of the Times' reporting? Is it just verboten on its face? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 00:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

This is the kind of thing you should use your judgement about, after considering all the facts and circumstances (including, importantly, other sources).

Is this an extraordinary claim? Is it appropriate to the subject matter (e.g., TV Tropes on tropes, not on cold fusion)? Is the user-generated site being cited in the news article to provide a contrast (e.g., "Game Company says X, but the Reddit forum says Y")? Is it the kind of content you would accept from an individual's social media account? Is this background information in the news article, or a key claim?

About the "key claim" question, a news article might provide in-text attribution merely by way of providing fuller information/credit where it's due, but they might also provide in-text attribution because they didn't think that checking the claim was worthwhile. Consider how differently, just based on common sense, you would react to these:

• "The political candidate has announced a campaign tour stop in Smallville. According to Atlas Obscura, the only reason to visit this small town is the World's Biggest Ball of Twine, so the decision to give a speech there has confused election observers..."
• "According to Atlas Obscura, a mysterious series of drone attacks on Smallville residents have been traced to a pair of twins who were given matching drones for their birthday...".

WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Also… when a reliable source (such as The NY Times) repeats user generated content (say a Reddit post), Wikipedia should cite the reliable source, not the unreliable UGC. In some circumstances, it might be appropriate to include a “courtesy link” to the UGC as part of the citation… but the citation itself should point to the RS. Blueboar (talk) 12:20, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

It's not an extraordinary claim, no. It's just UGC regurgitated by a substantially-less-than-NYT caliber of source (The Daily Dot), and I wanged to see if there was any institutionalized or codified rule that explicitly allowed or prohibited UGC-washing via marginal-or-better sources. If there isn't, I'll manage it from here. Thanks so much! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 20:46, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Mathematical proofs.

If a source that would otherwise be considered unreliable, i.e. because it is self published, but the statements within it are backed by mathematical proofs, would the source be considered reliable with respect to the information proven by the proof? Apersoma (talk) 19:49, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

A self-published source might or might not be reliable. However, self-published sources can only be used in two situations: for WP:ABOUTSELF/WP:BLPSELFPUB content, or if written by "an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" (see WP:SPS); if neither of those exceptions applies, then a self-published source cannot be used. The kind of question you're asking is not one that's good to present as a vague general case. I suggest that you go to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard and ask there, identifying the article you have in mind, the specific content that you want to add to the article, and the specific source you're wondering about. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:40, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

No. In particular we should not be in the business here of evaluating proofs to determine whether they are correct. That's what peer review is for. And although many valid works of mathematics exist as preprints with proofs prior to publication, it is also quite common to see editors trying to add unreliably-published fringe mathematics sources where the proofs are likely wrong but where determining exactly where they are wrong could be a lot of effort. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:43, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree, and this connects to the usual standard, which might be helpful for @Apersoma to know about:

We draw the line at something that an "educated person" can see, but specify that this educated person is not in possession of any sort of specialized knowledge. One way to express this is that for a mathematical subject, we're requiring sources to be sufficiently clear that a literature major or a dance major can understand that the source supports the article's contents. But if it requires a math major, then the answer is no.

To expand on what FOO wrote, the expert exemption is along the lines of "if Einstein had a blog". It's not really meant to be for a fan or a hobbyist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I missed that thank you Apersoma (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

You're welcome. (Don't worry about not knowing everything; nobody can read all the documentation, and folks are usually happy to explain. Just do your best, and keep asking questions when you want help.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Mathematical proofs on Wikipedia is a subject of interest to WP:WikiProject Mathematics. The usual standard there is Wikipedia should point to a source for proofs rather than have them in Wikipedia. Some can be put in, a very simple one or two liner as an explanation, or one that is of great interest and not too long like for instance that the square root of two is irrational or Euclid's proof that the number of primes is infinite. In general the straightforward answer to the original question is no, truth is not enough to make something eligeable for sticking into Wikipedia. NadVolum (talk) 12:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

The guideline is being abused by policing trolls to deny claims of dead people and existence of indie games

Just reporting the situation at Talk:Class of '09 and Talk:Elisa Rae Shupe.

This way, Wikipedia is staying bound to mainstream media (that can and is probably being controlled by national governments and think tanks), therefore undermining their pillar of neutrality.--Il Gatto Obeso (talk) 10:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

You might find the David Icke article interesting then. I'm just imitating what YouTube does when a person looks at a video! NadVolum (talk) 12:01, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

More to the point, see WP:RSN for this sort of thing though I think you'll get as much sympathy there as from me here. NadVolum (talk) 12:05, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

WP:NPOV requires that Wikipedia neutrally reflect what is found in reliable sources. In effect that means it will reflect the main stream position. So if you disagree with the main stream position, you will disagree with Wikipedia.

The situation at Elisa Rae Shupe is an old one that doesn't have any simple solution. While Class of '09 is one of WP:Notability, unless some secondary sources bother to report on it why should Wikipedia have an article about it? If you want to have articles without any restrictions there's always fandom. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:28, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

A similar situation to Shupe happend for a long time with Richard Lynn, whose death was not covered in any reliable sources for months (you can see discussion of this on the relevant talk page.) With people who were once in the public eye but no longer are, it's not uncommon for a death to go unnoticed in the media. And I do think that it's necessary to be cautious, especially with controversial figures or with figures whose notability touches on potentially controversial social issues - if we make it too easy to update a BLP's status on Wikipedia without a RS, people will eventually use that fact for disruption. --Aquillion (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Blanket unreliability of crypto news sites

Content in Do Kwon is being erased under the premise that all crypto news sites are not WP:RS. I'm aware of that many of these sites accept paid content and are thus to be treated with suspicion particularly when it comes to demonstrating notability; however, the content being deleted concerns legal action tied to a failed cryptocurrency and is thus not subject to this particular concern.

So, I put this question to the jury: is there Wikipedia consensus that all self-identified crypto news sites are always unacceptable as sources, regardless of the content being cited? Or do we have room for nuance here? Jpatokal (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

You might be interested in reading Wikipedia:Notability (cryptocurrencies)#Sources and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-01-27/In focus#Cryptos and bitcoins and blockchains, oh no!

It's never true that "all" sites are "always" unreliable, as even the most non-independent, self-published primary source can be reliable for a statement like "Paul Politician posted the following words to his MyFace page: 'blah blah blah'." But if you are asking whether they are a good kind of source to be using, the answer is 'no'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm aware of that essay, but my question is about verifiability, not notability. The Signpost piece is also authored by David Gerard, a noted crypto skeptic and thus hardly an unbiased view here; even more interestingly, he's also the person who reverted the edit above and has a long history of getting topic bans for pushing dubious interpretations of WP:RS policy. Jpatokal (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Just because the page says "notability" at the top doesn't mean that the advice in the ==Sources== section is irrelevant to your question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

RFC on "Author (year)" in-text citing

NB: this message was cross-posted on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors, and here.

Hi everyone! This is a shameless spam message to inform you about an RfC regarding narrative citation.

Specifically, see here: Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Proposal

I think it's quite strange that Wikipedia has existed for 24 years, and has been citing sources for 24 years, yet there still isn't a policy about narrative citation. Input is appreciated. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 19:17, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Nutshell

Currently the {{Nutshell}} for this page is:

Wikipedia requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. If you are new to editing and just need a general overview of how sources work, please visit the referencing for beginners help page.

To me this is equivalent to saying "as long as I put a <ref>Random link from the internet</ref> after the statement I am good to go".

From memory the relationship between verifiability (policy) and reliable sources (guideline) has been tumultuous, but the policy prominently links here, so for now I suggest simply removing the nutshell until something more representative of this guideline can be developed. This will at least force reading of the first paragraph. Commander Keane (talk) 09:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

If we had an actual definition of reliable source, then that would be a natural thing to put in the nutshell. But we don't. (We have a description of some qualities that are usually present in reliable sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps: "Editors need to be able to justify why a source is credible for supporting a particular claim".

This emphasizes:

• That sources can only be said to be reliable for specific claims, and
• Reliability cannot be asserted but must be evidenced, including by attributes

Weaknesses:

• Somewhat awkward language
• Uses the word source. What a source is should ideally be identified in the nutshell as it has various definitions that confuse editors (e.g. some may read source as New York Times, others may read source as attributed claim about biomedical information in a New York Times article from 1981)
• It is a necessary but not sufficient condition that credibility be justified (e.g. quality of justification, counter-considerations, editor consensus). It may, however, be fine for a nutshell, and may be resolved by appending "well" to justify, although this may make it confusing and vague.

Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 00:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

What do you think of this?

"Each book, article, or other source needs to be credible for supporting the particular claim(s) it supports. In case of a dispute, editors need to be able to explain why they relied on that source."

Credibility mostly never gets justified, because mostly everyone agrees. We only need justifications when there is a dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I like the "each book, article or other source" part. I understand that credibility mostly never gets explicitly justified, and that it's important in a dispute, but disputes only arise because the justification is not obvious (or obviously sufficient). The justification is always necessary, even if not explicitly stated.

I think a bigger issue is I worded my suggestion to include credibility as a procedural matter: an editor inserting a source has to be able to justify why it's reliable for a statement, and also credibility as a descriptive matter: a sources continued inclusion is based on editorial consensus that such credibility is justified. If a sourced claim is in an article, untagged with template:better source needed, it is understood to be a reliable source for a claim. Your second sentence only covers the first. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 01:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that the existence of a statement with a ref ("Elephants are mammals") means that the source is reliable for that claim. Statistically, it seems to be true most of the time, but we do see untagged instances such as "Elephants are mammals^{[lousy source]}". Frequently, all it means is that nobody has noticed that it's a lousy source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I may have overstepped. I think changing to your suggested nutshell would be an immediate improvement. My thinking was an application of WP:EDITCON: "An edit has presumed consensus until it is disputed or reverted" including the edits source being adequately reliable.

I do still think the nutshell for reliable source should cover sources that have been deemed reliable through explicit discussion and not just tell from the perspective of an initial editorial judgement. Maybe adding after "whether the source ultimately is considered reliable for a given statement is determined through consensus generated by such a dispute" would resolve this. Maybe it's not necessary or overly wordy. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 23:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

In re "sources that have been deemed reliable through explicit discussion", are you thinking about Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources discussions (which may be "GUNREL" in the general case but totally unreliable for some particular claim), or are you thinking about, e.g., a discussion on the talk page about the specific source+claim combination? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

The latter. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 00:45, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

The nutshell has been updated and I am now very comfortable linking new editors to this page. If there wasn't consensus to change it I was going to suggest Wikipedia:Consensus' generalist non-summary nutshell approach, but that isn't needed. Commander Keane (talk) 04:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Can we cite reliable articles on changes within user aggregate websites?

As an example, someone added a section to the Wikipedia article on the album to To Pimp a Butterfly, mentioning how it became the highest rated album on the music user aggregate website Rate Your Music. [1] This was removed. Then, it was readded into the article [2] and it is currently still on the article. Now, the source does not actually source the website itself, but an article from NME about the website: https://www.nme.com/news/music/kendrick-lamars-to-pimp-a-butterfly-overtakes-radioheads-ok-computer-as-top-rated-album-on-rate-your-music-3391372. Are we allowed to cite things like this, or should this not be on the article? ALittleClass (talk) 23:39, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @ALittleClass, and welcome to Wikipedia.

If nme.com is a reliable source (e.g., a music magazine), then that source can be used for that kind of information. If you need help figuring out whether it's a reliable source, then Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard is the place to ask.

Even if it is a reliable source, people have to work together to decide whether it should be included. For example, you wouldn't want a lot of random trivia in an article, even if you had a reliable source saying something like 'The name is an anagram for "Fruity Applet Tomb"'. That wouldn't be encyclopedic content. So it's possible that even though it's a reliable source, people would decide, e.g., that it was too promotional and spammy to feel encyclopedic. If you need help figuring out whether to include it, then the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard could be a good place to ask for help.

Alternatively, no matter what the question is, you can always start a discussion at Talk:To Pimp a Butterfly itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Reliable for opinions

This page's overview opens with:

Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians, who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves.

I think there's some issues with "analysis, views, and opinions", and with the overview's focus:

• "Paris is the capital of France" is not really analysis, views, or opinions, yet facts such as these are the bulk of what the reliable sources' guideline pertains to. I understand that this asserting a flipside of the WP:OR policy, but it's a pretty niche side of the guideline.
• Views and opinions are not meaningfully distinct
• It's hard to understand what it means for an author to be a "reliable" for their opinion. They may be noted for it, e.g. film critics or food critics. But reliable? In at least one sense (WP:ABOUTSELF) every author is a "reliable author" for their opinions.
• Following the previous bulletpoint, I would venture that most explicit opinions/views in Wikipedia are contained within #Reception sections of media articles. As a source's reliability is a factor in determining if material is DUE (e.g. WP:BESTSOURCES), we see for instance the Daily Mail not being used as a source for film reviews, even though we include Rotten Tomatoes scores which use the Daily Mail in their calculations. Some Daily Mail film reviewers are notable. I understand that The Daily Mail may be used in rare cases in an about-self fashion, but editors seem to view it as banned for this purpose.

Would love to hear some thoughts. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 03:08, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

There's a lot to talk about here. I'm going to pick out one from the middle:

Do you understand the difference between viewpoints, such as:

• Republicrats say the country needs more ___, and Demicans disagree.
• Consequentialists say ___ about whether it's okay to steal from a thief, and deontologists disagree.
• Russia says their military action in Ukraine was morally justified, and Ukraine says Russia is waging an unjustifiable war of aggression.

and opinions, such as:

• Coffee tastes good.
• Chocolate tastes better.
• That was a good movie.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think so. If I had said "In the opinion of Republicrats, the country needs more ____, while Demicans disagree" would you have corrected me, telling me these are viewpoints rather than opinions? Conversely, if I said "from my point of view, chocolates tastes better than coffee", would that be corrected? It seems like the distinction you're drawing is between opinions on quality, vs opinions on other things, which can't be summed up as viewpoints vs opinions. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 03:40, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I think maybe a distinction can be drawn as opinions being discrete, and viewpoints being patterns of opinions (attitudes), although I don't think your examples exemplify that. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 03:42, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

The distinction we normally use is that an opinion is a personal (perhaps "individual") thing, and a viewpoint is something that depends on "the point from which the viewer is viewing". Millions of people think coffee tastes good (or bad), but that's still an opinion. Whether coffee tastes good cannot be proven true in general; it can only be proven that some people like it (and I don't).

On the viewpoint side, you could say, about (e.g.) a war that it's logical for (e.g.,) opposing belligerents to hold differing views, and that you could even predict some part of the views: The instigators will declare their actions justified, the invaded will deem their territory violated, the taxpayers will see their taxes go up, the sellers of war goods will see their sales increasing, the neighboring territories will see refugees streaming in, the soldiers will have a different view of the war than the senior officers, the victor will have a different idea of which decisions and actions were most important than the vanquished. In contrast to an opinion, you can prove that people looking at the war from "this point" will usually "view" it differently than people looking at it from "that point".

I agree that there is some overlap. One can have an individual opinion based on a viewpoint. Perhaps "From the viewpoint of technical photography, the lighting in that film was bad" would be an example of that. Perhaps even "From the viewpoint of fiscal conservatism, this candidate is better than that one".

Consider another pair of examples:

• It is good for Wikipedia to have a lot of information. (opinion; cannot be proven right or wrong)
• From the viewpoint of readers, it's great to have lots of new articles to read, but from the viewpoint of the NPPers and AFC folks, a sudden influx of articles is a lot of unexpected work. (viewpoint; whether it's good or bad from that viewpoint is more or less objective, but there is no universal answer that applies to everyone)

It is my opinion that the most practical way to address this problem is not by editing guidelines, but to improve the Wikipedia articles on Opinion and Point of view (philosophy). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:25, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I generally like these distinctions you've drawn. I think a link to point of view (philosophy) or changing "viewpoint" to attitude would give more clarity. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 04:39, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I've no objection to linking, but I don't think that "attitude" is the right idea. Teenagers have "attitudes". Different countries have different "viewpoints" about various situations. "Climate change is a big deal because it will swamp most of my island home and destroy all the drinking water" is not "an attitude". It's a viewpoint. Specifically, it's a viewpoint, because someone who is viewing it from the "point" of living on that soon-to-be-submerged island will have a different view of climate change than someone who does not live there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay. Do you see it as at all problematic that all your examples of views are referring to those held by groups, while the overview is referring to individuals? (Publishing the views of reliable authors; can climate-change affected countries/Wikipedia readers/NPPers etc as a class be an author?) Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 21:30, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

How's this for a set of examples?

1. Paris is the capital of France is a fact, able to be demonstrated as true based on its formulation only from comparatively well-defined and well-accepted terms. It is also clear how changing each of the words would result in a false proposition.
2. France was the greatest military power in Europe during the reign of Louis XIV is a viewpoint. Most people would understand this as also being either true or false, but there is significant complexity in how one defines terms and the general parameters of the discussion, such that it simply requires expertise to discern one way or another. Most statements of value on Wikipedia live here?
3. Paris is (considered) a beautiful city – this is an opinion. I think most editors would make a serious editorial distinction depending on whether considered is part of it (i.e. whether it's an attributed opinion) but I think that matters less than some think—whether we ask for one's opinion relies either on how reliable a source is with facts and viewpoints much of the time (an expert opinion), or how prominently other RSes care to reproduce their opinion.

Remsense ‥ 论 21:47, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't love this distinction, and I don't think it is a good thing that several editors are each coming up with their own ways of determining what opinion means vs view. I don't think it's worth a protracted discussion, I was just trying to see whether people thought much is added by writing "analysis, views and opinions" vs "analysis and opinions". Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:45, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't helpful. Remsense ‥ 论 02:51, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Remsense Very sorry, I don't intend this to be mean, I'm glad you commented. I said "it's not a good thing that several editors are each coming up with their own ways of determining" as I think it comment on the underlying ambiguity, not on the value of your input. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:58, 6 April 2025 (UTC)