Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard

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Hysteretic model, self-publishing

After observing User:Nicolovaiana adding his own research to Hysteretic model, I removed it on the grounds of WP:OR. Then I noticed that virtually the entire article had been written by that user. The Matlab code included in the article has his byline on it. Four of the five sources supplied are by "Vaiana, Nicolò" and others. I don't know the extent, if any, to which material in the article, such as the mathematical formulas given, are published elsewhere in the field and the extent to which it's this user publishing his own research. Largoplazo (talk) 12:02, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Follow-up: I'm looking again and seeing that even the formulas are preceded by the likes of "In the bilinear model formulated by Vaiana et al.". The entire article reads as a presentation by Vaiana of his own work. Largoplazo (talk) 13:35, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I also find it interesting that the article does not mention two models for which we have standalone articles, i.e. Bouc-Wen model of hysteresis and Preisach model of hysteresis. And then there is this comment by an ip editor on the article's talk page This article, while giving off the air of being general, only cites work by the editor himself, and in the process ignoring almost a century of work on hysteresis modeling. This gives a very biased view of the field, to put it mildly, and rather feels like self-promotion by the editor. This is not how a scientist should conduct himself. (Talk:Hysteretic_model#Very_one-sided_view.) Looks to me like the entire article should probably go. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:39, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

With no reaction from the editor in question after more than two weeks, it may be time to consider nominating the article for deletion. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:03, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

List of larger indigenous peoples of Russia

The list is largely uncited and has WP:V problems, but there has been some edit warring recently on including Russians on the list. The entire list probably needs to be double checked for WP:V, but another editor contested the listing of Russians on the list, it was removed and sourcing was requested before re-adding it. It's be re-added and the sourcing failed verification. I've looked and can't find a WP:RS that justifies inclusion (see the discussion on the UN Definition of "indigenous peoples" on the talk page if you're curious why there aren't sources), but editors have objected with dictionary definitions and pushed inclusion. This seems like an WP:OR issue to me, am I wrong? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The name is curious -- are we talking about big people? A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 05:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a List of minor indigenous peoples of Russia which refers to an official government designation. But this one does not.  —Michael Z. 16:12, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

@A. B., the list of indigenous peoples in Russia appears to be split between the "minor indigenous peoples" with an official government recognition and larger indigenous peoples groups which are widely considered by scholars to be indigenous peoples. The problem is "indigenous peoples" is a term of art under international law and ethnic Russians don't really meet it so there isn't any scholarship on ethnic Russians as indigenous peoples. But editors keep adding ethnic Russians to the list without a citation and won't provide one when asked on the talk page. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

The bigger problem is that there is no basis for the existence of this list per WP:LISTN. See Lists of indigenous peoples of Russia: there are four lists, and this one is sort of defined as “all other Indigenous peoples of Russia” (or possibly the titular nations of some federal subjects, except see Talk:List of larger indigenous peoples of Russia#Requested move 19 May 2023).

The four independent lists are not useful to readers. We should just merge them into a single List of Indigenous peoples of Russia that explicitly uses the UN definition, annotating respective national groups with their special category and titular status, if any. There should also be a prose description or a separate article Indigenous peoples of Russia which explains what the official categories are.  —Michael Z. 19:39, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

If there are no reliable sources that have compiled lists of indigenous peoples of Russia not recognised officially (what "larger" is supposed to mean, if I understand correctly), it probably shouldn't be done by editors. WP:LISTCRITERIA requires selection criteria to be "unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources", whereas the sources I could find in Google Scholar either use the official definition (example) or explicitly say that the criteria is subjective (p.9). PaulT2022 (talk) 22:08, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Actuaria is being misrepresented

I believe the article actuaria is going off the rails towards WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Before about a week ago, the article was full of misinformation. It had been caused by previous editors relying on recycling of other Wikipedia articles, a mislabeled museum photo and a failure to actually read cited sources. The topic had been approached strictly from a military history perspective and those involved failed to notice that the "actuaria" has primarily been a term for a type of trade vessel.

The article is currently well-cited with reliable sources, but my view is that Mathglot is ignoring this in favor of strictly personal interpretations, including attempts to deconstruct a Latin term that is already explained by cited secondary sources like Casson. I've voiced very strong disagreement with Mathglot regarding their approach to both the article and use of sources but I feel that I'm not being listened to. Peter ^Isotalo 17:39, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Previous discussion can be found here and here. Third opinion request here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

IRS Forms

Are publicly viewable IRS forms, like form 990 filings by non-profits considered primary sources? Red Slapper (talk) 01:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I would treat them as court documents, primary in nature and should not be used to support controversial information. Masem (t) 01:09, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Red Slapper (talk) 01:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

If there are any portions which have been certified by a certified or chartered public accounting firm, they can possibly be treated as secondary sources.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 05:50, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Dispute over how to describe a film reception

There's a dispute over how to describe the reception of The Angry Birds Movie at Talk:The Angry Birds Movie#Rotten tomatoes "negative" or "mixed". Part of the dispute is over whether a "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes can be called "mixed". NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm very disappointed to see an admin both WP:FORUMSHOPPING and WP:CANVASSING, because your statement seems to be trying to sway people to your side by omitting the actual percent (as nobody is going to argue that a film with a 20% score is negative, but this page has people arguing if a 43% should be considered negative), and by ignoring the other arguments, such as that mentioning specific sites in the lede could be considered undue weight (I guess my other arguments weren't made fully clear until after you made this notification though). I am still assuming good faith, but you did not present this dispute in a neutral manner, and you already notified another noticeboard with similarly non-neutral presentation. Unnamed anon (talk) 04:13, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

This isn't canvassing/forum shopping. If there is a dispute it is reasonable to notify Wikiprojects with a stated interest in the article besides the relevant noticeboard. I think it is neutrally worded, in that I cannot work out just from this statement alone which side of the debate NRP is on. I was one of those who responded via the notice at Wikiproject Film and you will see I didn't dismiss your side of the argument. Betty Logan (talk) 04:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Alright, fair, I guess with the resulting comments on the talk page, NRP's notification was neutral enough. Thanks for letting me know that this isn't forum shopping as well. Unnamed anon (talk) 04:57, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it's good to neutrally notify potentially interested Wikiprojects about RfCs. It can draw in more interested editors potentially better informed on a topic. I do this, too.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 02:29, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

combining estimates

Would combining two casualty estimates with proper attribution to both sources be considered WP:OR or WP:SYNTH? Because one of the sources mention casualties from 1999-mid2002 and the other source mentions casualties from mid2002 to mid 2003. I'm basically writing a total from these two sources with attribution. like this:
~13,700–15,700 killed (1999-2003; Janes & IISS)[ref1][ref2]
the note specifies the time periods more exactly Ola Tønningsberg (talk) 19:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Is the uncertainty in those estimates temporal or numerical? Because if you know that both estimates are for time periods that cover precisely the entire time period, without any overlap (in particular, that there time frames are exact) then adding their counts might make sense. If their timeframes are approximate, then this is not a well-defined thing to do. For instance, if there was a big spike in mid-2002 that was counted in both estimates (because of time uncertainty) then adding would give you an overcount. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

@David Eppstein If you look at the note that I included in the estimate you can see that there is no overlap between the two figures. One counts from Aug 1999-Feb. 2002 and the second one from Aug. 2002-Aug. 2003. These are the two sources in question 1, 2. I added the approximation mark "~" because there is a couple month gap between the estimates and also left a note about this. Ola Tønningsberg (talk) 13:05, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Basic calculations (including addition) are generally permissible per WP:CALC. One potential thing to be careful of is whether the methodology for both estimates is the same: if they are counting different things then adding them together won't necessarily produce a meaningful result – and indeed WP:CALC specifically warns against comparing statistics which use different methodologies. (To give a constructed example, if you had reliable sources for a particular country's medal counts at every individual summer Olympics, you would want to make sure that they were all e.g. treating medals for demonstration sports, medal winners who were subsequently disqualified, and medal winners who competed under the Olympic flag rather than their national flag, the same). Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:21, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto-public Thank you for the reply. Both the sources simply count Russian combat deaths for these two periods. Do you think the addition would be meaningful as it pertains to the infobox of Second Chechen War? The estimates are listed separately in the the current version, and kind of clutters the small space. Considering MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE I believed this would be a valid change. Ola Tønningsberg (talk) 19:36, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not happy that there's a six-month gap in that figure. I realize that you do have it footnoted, but IMO footnotes should not contain information that is critical to accurately understanding the claim. And while you indicate the figure is an approximation, a six-month gap is 12% of the total timespan and per the observation above, who knows what could have happened during that time.Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:32, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Orange Suede Sofa Would moving the designation out of the footnote and into parantheses be sufficient? like this

~13,700–15,700 killed(Aug. 1999-Feb. 2002 & Aug. 2002- Aug. 2003; Janes & IISS)[ref1][ref2] Ola Tønningsberg (talk) 22:32, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I took a look at the infobox in question, which currently has the different estimates split up. My view is that compared to the rest of the infobox, which is already quite dense, the clutter is not that bad and I don't think that it's worth any potential inaccuracy or confusion to change this. Several other stats in the infobox cover disparate date ranges, so there is already some internal consistency there, and in the interest of clarity, accuracy, and avoiding synthesis, I would not recommend pursuing your proposal. I'm sympathetic to your concerns; this infobox has a very tough job of expressing so many competing estimates from both sides and from neutral sources, but do not think the small visual gain from your proposal is worth the risk of synthesis. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:45, 8 August 2023 (UTC)