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Caitlin Thompson (30 July 2020). "Enter the Grayzone: fringe leftists deny the scale of China's Uyghur oppression". Coda Media. Retrieved 19 October 2022. In March 2020, Wikipedia marked The Grayzone as a "deprecated source" and discouraged editors from linking to it — a designation shared with RT, the far-right TV channel One America News Network and Alex Jones' conspiracy theory site InfoWars.
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Medium (website)
I recently ran into a problem when I tried to save some notes in a userspace page of mine. I was notified that a deprecated link was on the page, and only when I deactivated the link to Medium (website)'s website was I allowed to save the page. I didn't even have any intention of ever using the link in an article. What's going on? Why get a warning for Medium? It isn't deprecated at all. It should just be used very cautiously. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:54, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why are right wing sources more predominately depricated/restricted?
Title says it all. Just for fun I compiled a list of 55 sources of American media which have bias ratings from AllSides. 36 of the sources are left wing. Of these, only one is rated as unreliable (Alternet). 19 of the sources are rated as right wing. Only one of these is considered reliable (ReasonTV)! Seven are rated as unreliable, and six more are completely depricated. Just curious how you justify this? 209.171.85.237 (talk) 15:45, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The bias is not a reason for deprecation (see WP:BIASED). A source may be biased but if it's reliable we can use it balancing it with other sources having different biases. If there are specific "left wing" sources that have published falsehoods, I suggest you check the archives of WP:RSN and raise this issue there. Alaexis¿question?21:06, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Deprecated Sources - Actual Wikipedia vs Current Description
Actual wikipedia seems so very different to what is written in this article. In reality, a deprecated source has a de-facto ban, completely unlike what is currently described.
"Acceptable uses of deprecated sources
Deprecation is not a blanket retroactive "ban" on using the source in absolutely every situation, contrary to what has been reported in media headlines. In particular, reliability always depends on the specific content being cited, and all sources are reliable in at least some circumstances and unreliable in at least some others. Citations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately. While some deprecated sources have been completely eliminated as references, others have not."
In reality, using a deprecated source means facing a challenge when posting, then being flagged by a bot, then having editors reject the source. There is no corresponding check whether the use is as a primary source, an opinion, or whether the criteria of factual sourcing apply. There seems no way to have an 'acceptable use' be accepted.
I agree. This seems to be a rather straightforward case in which there can be no reliability issues. I cannot comment whether the content is due in that article. Alaexis¿question?19:41, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Having read other topics on this page, I just wanted to highlight that my point is that it is confusing for new users to have the documentation so very different from the practice. Also, if the aim is for the documentation to be followed then there needs to be some balance against the zealous deletions based on source and not reliability. I appreciate comments on my own edit, but prefer they be added to the discussion here. 14.201.39.78 (talk) 10:08, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such thing as a "depreciated" source
More heat than light
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Lets be civil and assume good faith, I know for my own part the autocorrect that came standard on my system would change deprecated to depreciated (deprecated would be underlined in red too, was not in the short dictionary) because almost nobody in the world uses the word deprecated anymore. I would almost hazard a guess that its use as a wikipedia term of art is its most significant current use. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think depreciated is more often associated with loss of value whereas deprecated is as in less important (or out of date, coding). I still use deprecated in the sense of disapproval. Selfstudier (talk) 16:43, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
??? Horse Eye's Back, I am being civil. I wasn't replying to anyone. I was just providing general information to help editors. That's all. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thats not general information and it doesn't seem designed to help anyone, it appears to be a passive aggressive complaint at best. It is not civil to use talk pages to complain about what you see as the general shortcomings of your fellow editors. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There may be issues with considering it formally deprecated, since the RfC was never formally closed. You could explain the issue at WP:CR and request a closure, and perhaps someone would be willing to close it despite the time elapsed. If not, a new discussion might be necessary.
That said, the source can certainly be considered to be generally unreliable at minimum, as long as there isn't any reason to think that the situation may have changed. Since that's generally enough to remove the source from articles, that may be sufficient for your purposes. There would only be an issue if e.g. you think the source should also be edit-filtered. Sunrise(talk)21:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then I would say to either start a new RfC (if you think it's important to deprecate), or proceed with the understanding that the source is generally unreliable. Both approaches can be justified given the circumstances.
If you start an RfC, I would recommend explaining the full sequence of events, particularly the denied closure request. If you decide to remove sources based on general unreliability, the RfC would still be a fallback option if there are any objections (there shouldn't be, except perhaps for specific uses being argued to be exceptions). In that case, it might be a reasonable precaution to only do a few at a time, and resolve any issues each time before continuing. Sunrise(talk)16:22, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Column headings in "Currently deprecated sources" table
I haven’t looked at this page before so have missed out on how it developed. As a new visitor, I can’t work out the meaning of the "Last" column. I initially thought it meant the year when the deprecation was last discussed, but the dates don’t always match the latest dates in the "List" column. I assume the "Uses" column links to searches for the deprecated publication’s uses on Wikipedia. I’m probably just being thick, but thought I’d better mention that at least one reader is unsure what all the columns mean. --Northernhenge (talk) 11:30, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
