User talk:Jl2047a · Paulipedia

Welcome!

Hello, Jl2047a, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Accra. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Enock4seth (talk) 22:25, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Hold please

Could you please stop adding links to demographia? I'm concerned that that site is not a reliable source, and I'd like the chance to check in more detail tomorrow. Thanks. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:58, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes! Please stop. I can't find anything at this site to show it's a good source. Please stop for now. Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I've blocked you as it appears this account is being used solely to promote Demographia. If you could address this and the above issues, it may be possible to unblock you, but it does depend on your relationship with Demographia and why you haven't responded to concerns from other users. Nick (talk) 14:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I've taken a closer look at the document, and I'm inclined to say that it's not a reliable source. First of all, it is self-published. That means there's no editorial board (such as academic peer review or a publisher's editorial staff), which means there's no evidence that any of this has been fact-checked--either the specific data or the methodologies. And looking into the details of the methodology, it's very clear that the author (singular? a little unclear) is making a lot of judgments, about what constitutes an urban area, what constitutes a labor market, etc.; additionally, the author is clearly making specific judgments about specific cities, and those judgments may or may not conform with those of the field in general. Additionally, given the fact that the person makes specific judgments about individual cities, it would be very hard to say that his definition of an urban area matches the same area we're describing in a WP article.

Additionally, the introduction to the document really worries me. The first paragraph contains two fairly egregious grammatical errors, which is a hallmark of a non-academic publication (or, at least, non-peer reviewed). Plus, the author specifically calls out that they've been cited--already a worry, but the cite that he chooses to highlight is itself not particularly high profile.

Finally, the website itself (demographia.com) is also worrisome. The quality of formatting and layout is quite low; not itself a blow to reliability, but certainly not an indication of it. At the bottom, it clearly states that it's a production of a consulting agency; reading more about the agency at Wendell Cox, it's clearly an advocacy group, not a neutral academic/analytical/journalistic source.

All of these things together make me think this is not a reliable source. If you'd like to discuss it further, we can, but we need to address these issues. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:57, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. See also:

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Unblocking your account

Please communicate with us here so that we can discuss unblocking your account so you can join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#demographia.com. Thank you, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:57, 27 November 2013 (UTC)