Wikipedia Bans Daily Mail As 'Unreliable' Source (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Wikipedia editors have voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website in all but exceptional circumstances after deeming the news group "generally unreliable." The move is highly unusual for the online encyclopaedia, which rarely puts in place a blanket ban on publications and which still allows links to sources such as Kremlin backed news organization Russia Today, and Fox News, both of which have raised concern among editors. The editors described the arguments for a ban as "centered on the Daily Mail's reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication." The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia but does not control its editing processes, said in a statement that volunteer editors on English Wikipedia had discussed the reliability of the Mail since at least early 2015. It said: "Based on the requests for comments section [on the reliable sources noticeboard], volunteer editors on English Wikipedia have come to a consensus that the Daily Mail is 'generally unreliable and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. This means that the Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a 'reliable source' on English Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are encouraged to change existing citations to the Daily Mail to another source deemed reliable by the community. This is consistent with how Wikipedia editors evaluate and use media outlets in general -- with common sense and caution."

Comments

Re:Whack both sides

[squiggleslash]

I'd hardly blame CNN for making the peeing thing public domain, as you point out Buzzfeed already published it. If you think Buzzfeed is obscure and it wasn't going around like crazy as soon as it hit Buzzfeed's website, then I have this thing called "The Internet" I need to tell you about. It's entirely reasonable for CNN to cover something that everyone is talking about anyway.

Another problem with your complaint is your assumption that the peeing thing was false. The paper itself was a genuine report put together by a respected ex-MI6 officer. It was unlikely to be 100% true - and contained caveats explaining that - but it is more likely than not that most of the facts reported are true. The odd thing is that the only statement of fact debunked so far, that a Trump aide went to another country to conspire with Russia, was actually the only statement of fact in the entire report that the report itself said it wasn't certain about. The others, including the peeing thing, had no such disclaimer attached.

And meanwhile, in Russia, people matching the description of the various sources in the paper have been arrested, suggesting that Putin himself does actually take it seriously and believed the report was mostly correct.

What's interesting is that you and everyone else focus on the peeing thing. This is a fact that to most people would be embarrassing rather than disqualifying. Nobody wants their sexual fetishes or their temperament (the incident was a unique demonstration of both) discussed in public. But that shouldn't disqualify anyone for the presidency. It was the rest of the report that should have concerned you.