Forum:Using official twitter pages as a source?

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i was reading the manual of style recently and was wondering if tweets from official accounts such as https://twitter.com/#!/bbcdoctorwho and https://twitter.com/#!/steven_moffat count as valid sources for articles on this wiki. it didn't mention anything in the manual of style about that sort of thing and if it is allowed, can i suggest it be added in. Imamadmad ^{talk to me} 06:17, December 19, 2011 (UTC)

I think that Doctor Who Official twitter and ClassicDW twitter should be considered valid sources as they're stated as the official twitter pages.

I'm less sure of using Steven Moffat's twitter as a source. The two Doctor Who twitter accounts are both stated as the "Official" pages meaning they're sanctioned by the BBC and therefore the information has been approved for release in the same way a press release or whatever would be. But Moffat's page, while being a verified page doesn't state anything about him being an official mouth piece for the BBC.

So I'm unsure about using his, or any other writer, actor or crew's twitter as a source. But I'd like to see other user's thoughts before we consider writing a ruling into the MOS. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:21, December 21, 2011 (UTC)

against Steven Moffat's twitter because of what you said and also that Steven Moffat (probably as well as any future showrunner with twitter) lies A LOT if you haven't noticed by now. Almost everything he say are lies, he is the least reliable source anyone could possibly think of. --222.166.181.146^{talk to me} 22:33, December 27, 2011 (UTC)

I reckon use a twitter page as a source for something that it could hold credible information for. Eg. Steven Moffat's twitter could be used as a source for, say, personal details of Moffat's childhood, but not something such as the next 2Entertain DVD release. Get the idea? Tardis1963 talk 08:53, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

Reviving

This never got a definitive answer. Kicking back up the list for more comments before I archive and codify it.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 19:33: Wed 02 May 2012 

I'd go with Tardis1963's suggestion.

For Doctor Who-related info it has to come from "Official" Twitter accounts, and only these.

For personal information about real world people it can come from verified Twitter accounts.

Is having two rules for different information too complicated though? --Tangerineduel / talk 15:41, May 3, 2012 (UTC)

Tricky, this, cause Moffat lies. With his twitter account. Like everyone. And there are only 140 characters. So misinterpretations are more the norm than the exception. Twitter is kinda like reading tea leaves in a cup that's actually made for espresso, isn't it?
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 03:42: Fri 04 May 2012 

Well, that's why I said we keep the personal Twitter pages for personal information like; when they were born or what their favourite story is or stuff like that.

We use the "official" Twitter like the classicDoctor Who, Official Doctor Who and the DWM pages as sources that we'd cite. These feeds are usually used as releasing bit sized information unlike Moffat's or whatever they're truthful and usually doing it as a promotion/PR/new-type sort of thing.

Ideally I'd like to just include the latter of classicDW/DWM/Official Doctor Who pages and ignore the real world/Verified twitter accounts, but that seems kinda double standards and we might have people citing the Moff's account. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:12, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

I do follow Moffat on Twitter, and the only time he tells the truth is when something has already been announced. I.e a story title. It the BBC announces something, he might back it up. However, most of the time its just teases. People asking him for the truth, they ain't going to get it. MM/Want to talk? 15:28, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

This is gonna be a tricky one to write into a clear policy. Not impossible, mind, but just fraught with pitfalls. Cause the thing is, in certain contexts, a "Moffat lie" would indeed be admissible. I mean if we're trying to prove the origin of a myth or give an example of his lying ways, then his twitter account may well be a perfectly valid source. And when you say "official" accounts, are we going to need to create a list of those so that we're clear what's goin' down? Or can we get away with giving a few examples and then hoping that our wide demographic of site editors will know what we mean?

Here's the contents of WP:TWITTER:

Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

• the material is not unduly self-serving and exceptional in nature;
• it does not involve claims about third parties;
• it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
• there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
• the article is not based primarily on such sources.

This policy also applies to pages on social networking sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

("Exceptional in nature" here means a claim that is well beyond what would be expected of the person given their other known statements, or a fact that is actively challenged by other sources. Thus, statements on 1 April from most twitter accounts would likely be seen as "exceptional". Or if Karen Gillan were to tweet now that she's actually not leaving, we'd have to treat that as exceptional, since it flies in the face of a ton of other material from reputable news outlets to the contrary.)

I'm not advocating a slavish copying of the Wikipedia rule, but it's maybe a starting point. Can we start with this format and then tweak it, or do we need a great deal more specificity than this? Or, might we have this as the sort of headlining "rule" on the page, with a few examples underneath it. I think what I'm basically trying to figure out is whether we have to list every single twitter account that's acceptable, or can we try to write the policy in a more common sense way?
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 19:45: Fri 04 May 2012