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All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source. This means a reliable published source must exist for it, whether or not it is cited in the article. Sources must support the material clearly and directly: drawing inferences from multiple sources to advance a novel position is prohibited by the NOR policy. [h]
This doesn't mean that no article on the topic should ever exist! However, just because someday someone might write a valid, credible, verifiable article that meets Wikipedia policy does not mean that the inferior, invalid article should remain as a placeholder. Reliable sources are a requirement for an article, not an objective.
Other reliable sources include university textbooks, books published by respected publishing houses, magazines, journals, and news coverage (not opinions) from mainstream newspapers. Self-published media , where the author and publisher are the same, are usually not acceptable as sources.
The reliability of Wikipedia articles can be measured by the following criteria: Vandalism of a Wikipedia article. The section on the left is the normal, undamaged version; and on the right is the vandalized, damaged version. Accuracy of information provided within articles; Appropriateness of the images provided with the article
Consequently, some judgment and comparison of sources is needed in order to identify reliable sources. Reliable sources respect truth; a source that is commonly untruthful is not reliable. A source may be partly or more or less reliable. Concurrence of possibly reliable sources may help in identifying reliable sources, and editors should seek it.
Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead. If no such source exists, that may suggest that the information is inaccurate. The source may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions , and self-published or user-generated content authored by established subject-matter experts ...
Reliable scholarship – Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.
Articles are only as good as the editors who have been editing them—their interests, biases, education, and background—and the efforts they have put into a particular topic or article. Since we try to avoid original research , a particular article may only be as good as (a) the available and discovered reliable sources , and (b) the subject ...