Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia's 'Ban' of 'The Daily Mail' Didn't Really Happen (theoutline.com)
Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that editors at Wikipedia had "voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website," calling the publication "generally unreliable." Two months later, not only previous Daily Mail citations on Wikipedia pages are still alive, several new ones have also appeared since. So what's going on? The Outline has the story: There are no rules on Wikipedia, just guidelines. Of Wikipedia's five "pillars," the fifth is that there are no firm rules. There is no formal hierarchy either, though the most dedicated volunteers can apply to become administrators with extra powers after being approved by existing admins. But even they don't say what goes on the site. If there's a dispute or a debate, editors post a "request for comment," asking whoever is interested to have their say. The various points are tallied up by an editor and co-signed by four more after a month, but it's not a vote as in a democracy. Instead, the aim is to reach consensus of opinion, and if that's not possible, to weigh the arguments and pick the side that's most compelling. There was no vote to ban the Daily Mail because Wikipedia editors don't vote. (emphasis ours.) So what happened? The article adds: In this case, an editor submitted a broader request for comment about its [the Daily Mail's] general reliability. Seventy-seven editors participated in the discussion and two thirds supported prohibiting the Daily Mail as a source, with one editor and four co-signing editors (more than usual) chosen among administrators declaring that a consensus, though further discussion continued on a separate noticeboard, alongside complaints that the debate should have been better advertised. Though it's discouraged, the Daily Mail can be (and still is) cited. An editor I met at a recent London "Wikimeet" said he'd used the Daily Mail as a source in the last week, as it was the only source available for the subject he was writing about.
An editor I met at a recent London "Wikimeet" said he'd used the Daily Mail as a source in the last week, as it was the only source available for the subject he was writing about.
According to Wikipedia's notability guideline, if no reliable sources can be found about a subject, any article about it would fail Wikipedia's verifiability policy. For this reason, the subject shouldn't have an article in the first place. That's what Wikipedia means by "non-notable": there is no way to make a verifiable article about the subject.
It's fake turtles all the way down.
They should be blocking the war mongering Washington Post and New York Times! The entirety of mass media is totally corrupt, nothing but a government/corporate lapdog.
It boggles my mind how much goddamn bureaucracy there is at sites like Wikipedia and Stack Overflow. It's nearly as bad as in government.
It's also curious to note that such sites lean very much to the political left.
It makes me wonder, is it bureaucracy that attracts a high concentration of leftists? Or is it a high concentration of leftists that inherently results in bureaucracy forming? Or is it a vicious circle of both, where leftists get involved and create bureaucracy, which in turn attracts more leftists, who in turn add even more bureaucracy, which attracts even more leftists, and on and on and on?
"Not a Reliable Source" as a consensus on the Daily Mail seems reasonable to me. However, Wikipedia policy doesn't say, "No citations to unreliable sources allowed anywhere" It's more "mark it as unreliable if you really need to use it".
Neither The Guardian, nor The Outline really understand the Reliable Sources policies on Wikipedia. Also, finding one WP editor who did "X" doesn't mean "X" is following the consensus or not.
Also, theoutline sucks down bandwidth with rather large (almost full page) ads in the middle of the story, so... no thanks.
It's ironic that the Guardian is pointing the finger at someone else as unreliable or fake news. Actually, it'd be fairly hypocritical for any news media outlet to accuse another these days, except maybe Reuters, who still seems fairly neutral.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
A bunch of government bots editing a consensus-based reality of dubious information, all cited from embedded government agents and assets in various media sources.
Fuck off Wikipedia...
There's only one news source out there that I trust, and it's "BetaNews".
I know I can trust it because there's a Slashdot front page submission linking to it almost every day. On some days, like March 31, it was linked to from two submissions. On March 25 it was linked to from three submissions!
Since Slashdot has the highest standards of journalistic integrity, I know there wouldn't be front page links to a site that wasn't reputable. Since Slashdot submissions link to "BetaNews" so often, it must be a highly reputable source of news.
I also know I can trust "BetaNews" because some of their articles basically just quote from the original press release or marketing literature, with a paragraph or two of idle commentary added around the quote. With this level of transparency there's no question about what the source of the information was.
As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't being reported by "BetaNews" then it isn't news at all, and I don't want to know about it.
Wish I had mod points, you would get them.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Why do you assume the "subject" mentioned in TFS was the subject of an entire article? It could also be the only source for a "subject" of a paragraph or even a sentence within an article that has multiple sources. There are other guidelines dealing with material within an article, but notability only applies if the "subject" is an entire article. (BTW -- what you just did there? Wikilawyering. That is one of the primary reasons people hate contributing to Wikipedia. And if you're one of the deletionists -- who tend to quote notability guides most often -- you're one of the main problems with Wikipedia.)
So Daily Mail is making fake news about CNNs fake news on the NYT fake news.
The fake news only becomes real when the charged SJW reads it because they're stoooooopid.
In other words, truth be damned. The truth is achieved by a vote in Wikipedia land.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Slashdot has the same issue, of course.
Wikipedia has things which by pretty much anyone else's definition are rules, but Wikipedia officially calls some of them "guidelines". Wikipedia does things which by pretty much everyone else's definition are votes, but Wikipedia doesn't officially call them votes because they are not followed 100% of the time (even though they are followed often enough that other people would call them votes).
Claiming that the story is wrong because they weren't really rules or votes is just privileging Wikipedia-terminology over real-world terminology. It's like claiming that a story about small and large drinks at Starbucks is wrong because they're really Short and Grande drinks, not small and large at all.
Wikipedia "banning" the Daily Mail was analogous to when Google announced they were going to pull h.264 support out of Chrome. A tale... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
#DeleteChrome
There are other guidelines dealing with material within an article
Very true. But each paragraph of an article also has to be verifiable. Otherwise, a paragraph supported solely by unreliable sources should be removed. This goes double if the subject is a living person. As Wikipedia:Verifiability puts it: "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced."
It's ironic that the Guardian is pointing the finger at someone else as unreliable or fake news.
Only if you live in a black-and-white world where everything is absolutely wrong all the time or absolutely right all the time. Back in the real world, certain news media outlets, which not perfect are a lot more reliable than certain other news media outlets.
To equate them all is as wrong as the news stories you are decrying.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So then the previous article was fake news about a ban on citing a fake news source?
Worse, the Slashdot article isn't even internally consistent:
There was no vote to ban the Daily Mail because Wikipedia editors don't vote.
Or...
Seventy-seven editors participated in the discussion and two thirds supported prohibiting the Daily Mail as a source
Which is true? Seems like there is hair splitting going on here. Especially since the original Guardian article included the following that is entirely consistent:
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’.
"It could also be the only source for a "subject" of a paragraph or even a sentence within an article that has multiple sources."
But that in itself can be deeply problematic, as one of the biggest problems with The Daily Mail is not that it outright fabricates stories (though it has done that too) but that it over-exagerates the impact of things, makes up numbers, and so on and so forth.
So if the paragraph their quoting has no secondary source other than The Daily Mail, due to The Daily Mail's history there is every chance that that paragraph in itself is singularly sourced from The Daily Mail because it is a fabricated part of the story.
So I'd agree with the GP, that's not really a sufficient excuse to cite it because it's possible it's the only source because what it's saying simply is not true.
First they ban it, then they compliment it? This makes no sense.
"Though it's discouraged, the Daily Mail can be (and still is) cited."
Which is entirely consistent with the original:
“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.”
Yup. Locked in a little room with madmen and shills, the "conflict resolution process" is a fancy name for "the runaround", and if you do get some sort of moderator intervention they do the most shallow reading of the situation possible, and display all the even-handed wisdom of an old irc-moderator defending territory...
Oh, and you're supposed to pretend that you're treating everyone with respect, consequently you're typically surrounded by people making a great show of being politely reasonable though their sincerity is, shall we say, suspect.
What was that Jimmie Wales used to say? Working on wikipedia is supposed to be fun?
I see rules that keep it from turning into a useless cess pool.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's ironic that the Guardian is pointing the finger at someone else as unreliable or fake news.
Not really, The Guardian might have an unashamed slant to their articles, but I can't remember the last time I ever heard of the Guardian straight-up fabricating something. With the Mail it's pretty much par for the course.
It's fake turtles all the way down.
No, one of them is real and he's a snapper. Good luck with that,
> I'm not sure there's a correlation between bureaucracy and "leftists"
Liberals (aka the left) tend to think in terms of "we", that the group should do this or that. They tend SOCIAList and COMMUNist (social and community). Conservatives (aka the right) tend to think of individual freedom and individual responsibility.
Naturally people on the left side of the spectrum therefore form groups, commitees -bureaucracies- through which the whole of society is supposed to work together. Conservatives tend to be more individualistic. We don't need a committee for me to do my thing and you do your thing.
Both viewpoints have their strengths and weaknesses. It's too bad that rather than complementing each other, getting the best of both worlds, these two groups in the US tend to fight each other so much. They cooperate more when they face a common opponent, such as in World War I and World II.
I suppose this fact checking article is technically accurate for a very specific and narrow set of criteria... which aren't even well defined in TFA. (Technically right? That's the best kind of right!)
It reminds me of these recent fact checks: http://imgur.com/a/tSs3o
"Pants on fire" - (Number is correct, but fails to mention the cause)
"False" - (Transgender girls aren't boys)
"Mostly False" - (The numbers are valid, the comparison is questionable)
I once read a book by Linda Hill that I personally found amazingly valuable, but only because I was careful not to light any matches, because her presentation was dry, dry, dry.
Because of the Indian incompetence story here on Slashdot this morning, I went to paste a link into my files, and chanced upon a past entry concerning HCL Technologies, a topic that Linda Hill has addressed in video, and soon I found myself watching a clip of hers on YouTube I hadn't seen before.
Linda Hill on empowering young sparks at HCL — July 2016
And here we have this Wikipedia article, where the unstated premise seems to be "Surprise! Derf-derf-derf, Wikipedia doesn't actually practice zero-deviation culture, despite their publicly assigned role as the plastic–pocket-protector paragon of geek dysfunction.
No, instead what we have is this: if a source is broadly flagged as tainted, it becomes open season to replace this source with a better citation wherever and whenever, without expecting significant blow back.
Isn't that leadership enough?
Is the underlying zero-deviation fixation that motivates this story just a tired strawman? Or is this derf-derf strawman meme playing to a real audience?
Well, I personally would run, run, run if I found myself in that audience, because anyone who doesn't is doomed to be soon be looking up at India as the management enlightenment movement that just passed you by with a big whoosh.
It's not that wrong. While not all stories are fake, there's far too many of them, and all the media outlets have a clear cut bias which colors their reporting commensurately (many of them are owned by the same parent company). This does not lead to cool heads and objective analysis.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I'll grant you I conflated fake news with bias, but I believe them to be related. By reporting with a bias, they can lead readers or viewers to draw conclusions "between the lines" so to speak, which may not have any basis in fact, only innuendo.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Well, clearly the editor regards the Mail as a "reliable source" within the meaning of that policy.
In general, I would agree with him. It's rare for the Mail to print outright falsehoods - and when they do, they're good about admitting and retracting them when they learn better. Their editorial spin is shameless, but that only applies on some topics.
In general, if you read a "fact" in the Mail, there's a good chance that it's true. What you do need to do is be very, very careful to distinguish the facts from the conclusions drawn from them; but that's true reading all news outlets nowadays.
Fake bin./
It's ironic that the Guardian is pointing the finger at someone else as unreliable or fake news.
Only if you live in a black-and-white world where everything is absolutely wrong all the time or absolutely right all the time. Back in the real world, certain news media outlets, which not perfect are a lot more reliable than certain other news media outlets.
To equate them all is as wrong as the news stories you are decrying.
This.
There are levels of trust. Whilst I find the Guardian as guilty as the Daily Mail in exagerating and outright fabricating the facts there are two important distinctions,
1. The Daily Mail is far worse at it. This does not excuse the Guardian, but it means I'll trust the DM far less.
2. The Guardian is far more eloquently written. This means that there is a minimum intelligence level required tor read it. Intelligent people are less likely to fall for propaganda and dont like to feel like their back is being urinated on.
So in a straight up fight between the Guardian and the Daily Mail, I'll trust the Guardian to be more accurate until corroborating information is available. This isn't to say that I trust the Guardian, as I said, they often exaggerate, but not to the point of repeatedly printing well proven lies. This is one of the Guardians bigger failures, however were this were reversed, we'd consider this kind of fabrication to be just another day at the Daily Mail.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It's not that wrong. While not all stories are fake, there's far too many of them, and all the media outlets have a clear cut bias which colors their reporting commensurately (many of them are owned by the same parent company). This does not lead to cool heads and objective analysis.
Do you have a list of reputable news sources one could rely on?
Or is this another case of all sources being hopelessly bad, in which case we are all fucked by definition, since there are no sources at all that can be relied on?
Note 1: I really would like to see your list of reputable news sources, if you have one.
Note 2: The Guardian is far less problematic than The Daily Mail. Until I have a better list of sources I can use instead, I have to resort to using the least bad ones.
"An editor I met at a recent London "Wikimeet" said he'd used the Daily Mail as a source in the last week, as it was the only source available for the subject he was writing about."
Erm, that's usually a very good indication that the subject is false, didn't happen or was otherwise the figment of a Mail writer's fevered imagination. Not always, but that right there is a massive red flag if you're trying to source actual facts.
It's a shame that filthy rag isn't considered contraband. Everyone involved and its entire readership should be tried as traitors to the UK. Admittedly that would mean we'd need more punishment enclosures for the resulting mass incarceration but we have to kick-start our manufacturing industry somehow now that we're leaving our biggest trading partner.