peter shatner please stop erasing factual data i am starting to detect a bias please read below wall street journal online by james taranto aug p m et he turned out to be peter shatnerno relation to sen mark kirk of illinois but the son of the man who played another kirk in the original startrek from wikipedia what counts as a reliable source further information wikipedia identifying reliable sources the word source in wikipedia has three meanings the type of the work some examples include a document an article or a book the creator of the work for example the writer the publisher of the work for example oxford university press all three can affect reliability base articles on reliable third party published sources with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy source material must have been published the definition of which for our purposes is made available to the public in some form unpublished materials are not considered reliable use sources that directly support the material presented in an article and are appropriate to the claims made the appropriateness of any source depends on the context the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts legal issues evidence and arguments the greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues the more reliable the source be especially careful when sourcing content related to living people or medicine if available academic and peer reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources such as in history medicine and science editors may also use material from reliable non academic sources particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications other reliable sources include university level textbooks books published by respected publishing houses magazines journals mainstream newspapers editors may also use electronic media subject to the same criteria see details in wikipedia identifying reliable sources and wikipedia search engine test