Assuming your summary of events is accurate, it seems that the source isn't neutral. That being the case, I'm of the opinion that it might be reliable in some cases, but not in others. For example, I doubt you'd find many objections to using a company's own information page, when looking for the date a company was founded; for more complex or potentially controversial information, however, getting information from third party, neutral sources is probably preferred.

If one particular user keeps adding the source, and seems to be adamant about it, they might a single-purpose account. You could consider an RfC to determine an appropriate course of action.

That all assumes, of course, that what you've said here is correct and fair. And that's difficult to check without more info, but I think you wanted to keep the discussion theoretical.

Knocked by the Economist? Ouch. :p

-Luna

On 12/8/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:

Let's suppose we have a small country in a forgotten corner of the world.

And let's assume that a local English-language website appeared out of nowhere, with no ads, hosted on the same server with official government sites (even the same IP!), has obviously the same designer and uses the same software with those government sites.

That news source could even disagree with the government on minor point, in order to look independent and reliable. The only references in the mainstream press (e.g. The Economist) call it an "astroturfing" attempt of the government.

Would you call this source "reliable", worthy to be used as for references in Wikipedia?

And if there's a wikipedian who really loves this source, who agrees almost 100% to it and adds it to dozens of articles, reverting any attempt to remove it, what should we do?

---

WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 12/8/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:

Let's suppose we have a small country in a forgotten corner of the world.

And let's assume that a local English-language website appeared out of nowhere, with no ads, hosted on the same server with official government sites (even the same IP!), has obviously the same designer and uses the same software with those government sites.

That news source could even disagree with the government on minor point, in order to look independent and reliable. The only references in the mainstream press (e.g. The Economist) call it an "astroturfing" attempt of the government.

Would you call this source "reliable", worthy to be used as for references in Wikipedia?

And if there's a wikipedian who really loves this source, who agrees almost 100% to it and adds it to dozens of articles, reverting any attempt to remove it, what should we do?

I appears unlikely that your example is hypothetical what case do you have in mind.