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Wikipedia's 'Ban' of 'The Daily Mail' Didn't Really Happen (theoutline.com)

Posted by msmash on from the getting-to-the-bottom-of-things dept.

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.

70 comments

  1. Fake newsception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    So then the previous article was fake news about a ban on citing a fake news source?

    We need to go deeper! This article better turn out to be fake news.

    1. Re:Fake newsception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's fake turtles all the way down.

    2. Re:Fake newsception by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.
    3. Re:Fake newsception by OYAHHH · · Score: 1

      Wish I had mod points, you would get them.

      --
      Caution: Contents under pressure
    4. Re:Fake newsception by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    5. Re:Fake newsception by Layzej · · Score: 1

      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’.

    6. Re:Fake newsception by Layzej · · Score: 1
      In fact I'm not sure that this new article says anything that wasn't already said in the original Guardian article. This new article says:

      "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.”

    7. Re:Fake newsception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

    8. Re:Fake newsception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's fake turtles all the way down.

      No, one of them is real and he's a snapper. Good luck with that,

    9. Re:Fake newsception by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

      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.

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      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    10. Re:Fake newsception by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      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.
    11. Re:Fake newsception by mjwx · · Score: 1

      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.
    12. Re:Fake newsception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

  2. Notability would ban that subject in the 1st place by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. The Daily Mail? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  4. So much goddamn bureaucracy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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?

    1. Re: So much goddamn bureaucracy. by Ricwot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wikipedia is a group endeavour, people on the left are more likely to seek community solutions, people on the right are more likely to work alone.

      Once you've largely written your encyclopaedia, there's nothing for talented individuals to do, they don't want to spend all day arguing over conjunctions and which picture is best, so the only people left are the ones with bizarre ideas about consensus.

    2. Re:So much goddamn bureaucracy. by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

      Tell us what else leans to the left from your perspective. The horizon, maybe?

      I'm not sure there's a correlation between bureaucracy and "leftists", but I'm willing to concede that putting one dictator in charge is an effective way to get rid of bureaucracy. We'll probably differ on whether that's a good thing.

    3. Re:So much goddamn bureaucracy. by guruevi · · Score: 1

      From my understanding of politics, the left wants government to control everything and everyone, government to them is beneficial to a society, if you're fully to the left, you end up with communist and socialist ideals - the government takes a proportional amount of resources and provides free food, free housing, free healthcare and a number of other resources for everyone, ultimately having rules and regulations that covers every single entity and interaction is most important to make society a better place for everyone.

      The right wants government to be as small as possible or non-existent, fully to the right you'll find anarchists and libertarians. They don't want anyone to interfere with their personal wealth or personhood, belief systems, guns etc and won't interfere with others' matters, even if a particular policy isn't beneficial to society as a whole, ultimately freedom is most important to make society a better place for everyone.

      When you form a meta-society like Wikipedia, you end up with both people at the table, people that don't want any interference and people that want to regulate the 'society' to make it a better place. The left, per definition, steps up to do this job to make said rules and regulations unless there is sufficient interference from people that per definition do not want to interfere.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    4. Re:So much goddamn bureaucracy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nothing of the sort.

      The terms "left wing" and "right wing" come from the times of the French revolution, and had to do with the seating arrangements in the parliament.

      To the left of the president, sat the "revolutionaries" that opposed monarchy (the establishment), and to the right sat those those that supported the monarchy.

      The terms came to mean:

      - Left wing: strongly promotes social equality and is willing to eschew tradition and cultural values;
      - Right wing: very conservative and their policies lean more on traditional values and national and cultural identity and perceived "natural order" of things.

      Remember that the terms have to be understood in the historic context: the French revolution. Basically, the left supported the Republic, while the right supported the Monarchy.

      These are, however, very coarse generalizations and not very useful in a "real" discussion of politics, outside the history context. The political spectrum is much more complex for these basic labels: for example, Nazis are generally called an "extreme right wing" movement, when in reality, some of their policies - like social welfare policies - were very obviously what you would call "left wing". Of course none of them would be caught dead admitting this.

      Unfortunately, the terms were so misused that they just became a short-hand for anything people don't like. If you don't like someone, just call them [left|right] wing nutter, and you shut down the dialogue right quick. You can also add some qualifiers such as "alt" or "radical" or "far" to emphasize your point.

      It's just a polite way of saying "go f*" yourself, really.

    5. Re: So much goddamn bureaucracy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anarchists are leftists. Communism officially believes in the withering away of the state. There have been many autocratic, right wing regimes with a large state apparatus. There have also been left wing regimes with large and autocratic state structures, and those on the right that wish to see a withering away of the state. And then you have feudalism which is different again.

      TL;DR - it's not a two dimensional axis and humans.

    6. Re:So much goddamn bureaucracy. by doom · · Score: 1

      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.

      Why's it curious? Right-wing thinkers almost by definition lean toward strong centralized control by authority figures. The left is constantly looking at more distributed systems with more bottom-up control, in the hope of empowering individuals (you know, democracy and freedom and all that).

      It is admittedly a little peculiar that no one ever seems to learn that there are problems with "consensus decision-making" until they actually try it-- it seems like every single arts organization, activist group, and half of the teams of Silicon Valley programmers think they can use "consensus", even though anyone whose ever tried it runs screaming from the endless meetings and open-ended discussions and political wrangling-- there are breakdown modes where the process is hi-jacked by crazed passive-aggressive dictators-from-below, and you would think those would be well-known by now.

    7. Re:So much goddamn bureaucracy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From my understanding of politics, the left wants government to control everything and everyone, government to them is beneficial to a society,
      if you're fully to the left, you end up with communist and socialist ideals - the government takes a proportional amount of resources and provides free food, free housing, free healthcare and a number of other resources for everyone, ultimately having rules and regulations that covers every single entity and interaction is most important to make society a better place for everyone.

      The right wants government to be as small as possible or non-existent, fully to the right you'll find anarchists and libertarians. They don't want anyone to interfere with their personal wealth or personhood, belief systems, guns etc and won't interfere with others' matters, even if a particular policy isn't beneficial to society as a whole, ultimately freedom is most important to make society a better place for everyone.

      Then your understanding of political spectrum concepts is flawed. Left-wing anarchists exist, and in fact, much of Marx's writings concerned the malignancy of government, and there are many right-wing authoritarians who denigrate freedom.

      Though the existence of a government which does not constitute a benefit to society is anathema, only the extremely individualistic claim it is inherently not intended and effectual at being beneficial.

      When you form a meta-society like Wikipedia, you end up with both people at the table, people that don't want any interference and people that want to regulate the 'society' to make it a better place. The left, per definition, steps up to do this job to make said rules and regulations unless there is sufficient interference from people that per definition do not want to interfere.

      Actually, on Wikipedia, you find a lot of different things, including people who decide to act out against others just out of spite, others who try to constitute matters to benefit themselves, and many more.

      Besides, have you met Jeff Sessions? Roy Moore? June Griffin? Anne Coulter? Cliven Bundy? They do want to interfere with others' matters, even when their policies are restrictive and harmful to society as a whole.

    8. Re:So much goddamn bureaucracy. by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 1

      You should definitely re-evaluate your understanding of politics.

      Anarchists are generally left-wing (except anarcho-capitalists, maybe), communism specifically requires the complete withering of the state, there have been plenty of authoritorian right-wing regimes.

      It's not a left/right one-dimensional axis. It isn't even two-dimensional, it has a hell of a lot of dimensions.

      Personally, I lean towards libertarian socialism. Think on that for a while, it's a real thing.

      --
      Eat the rich.
  5. Daily Mail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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.

    1. Re:Daily Mail by tepples · · Score: 1

      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".

      I think the expectation is that people use "this has sat in the article for a month without a reliable citation" as an excuse to remove a contentious claim from an article.

  6. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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...

  7. There's only one news source I trust: "BetaNews" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  8. Re:Notability would ban that subject in the 1st pl by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1

    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.)

  9. Re: Fake Fake Fake newsception (+5, Factual) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  10. the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by OYAHHH · · Score: 1

    In other words, truth be damned. The truth is achieved by a vote in Wikipedia land.

    --
    Caution: Contents under pressure
    1. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by pseudofrog · · Score: 1

      How, then, should Wikipedia determine the truth? People tend disagree about things on occasion.

    2. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by sexconker · · Score: 1

      An angry virgin admin or prolific editor takes over a Wikipedia page and fervently reverts any edits he doesn't like, throws a hissy fit on the talk page, often citing ambiguous rules or guidelines that he doesn't apply to his own edits, then locks the page from editing due to "abuse".

      This happens all the fucking time any any page remotely related to anything political or controversial.

    3. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by tepples · · Score: 1

      By teaching the controversy. If one set of reliable sources says one thing, but another set of sources of comparable reliability says something else, the article can mention disagreement on facts. But editors must be assess "comparable reliability" carefully to avoid giving undue weight to fringe viewpoints.

    4. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by Richard_at_work · · Score: 0

      Wikipedia arent interested in the truth, they are interested in verifiability - which is an altogether entirely different thing.

    5. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by rockout · · Score: 1

      I'm no super-sleuth, but it sounds like someone is angry about having their political opinions removed from edits that they've made to Wikipedia pages.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
    6. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Yup, you're no super sleuth. The last edit I made to Wikipedia involved an article about a famous bird. The edit was reverted by some assclown for some shit about "no original research" despite the fact that I was quoting an official source regarding that bird.

      That was about a decade ago, I guess.

      Wikipedia is shit.

    7. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By teaching the controversy. If one set of reliable sources says one thing, but another set of sources of comparable reliability says something else, the article can mention disagreement on facts.

      That's all well and good, but generally the people who support "teaching the controversy" are using it as an excuse to give equal weighting to fruitcakes without any scientific or journalistic rigour whatsoever.

    8. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a misunderstood slogan. Of course Wikipedia cares about getting the facts straight.
      But it gets its information from cited reliable sources, not from the editors' own "knowledge of truth".

    9. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by rockout · · Score: 1

      You have to admit I was pretty close.

      Anyway, you could have cited your source, if you really had one, and that would've more than likely been the end of it. If you didn't have a source to cite, then obviously the policy has to be to strike that info, because anyone can just say "I'm quoting an official source!" without backing it up.

      In any case, while many Wikipedia pages are "shit", as you so eloquently explained, they are far outnumbered by the useful pages that have sources cited for most, if not all, of the information on them. Most of the the science pages are really good, which makes me wonder what bird you were adding info on, and what that info was.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
    10. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given sexconker's username, it may be that it wasn't the feathered kind of bird

    11. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by sexconker · · Score: 1

      No, you weren't correct. You specifically talked about political opinions. This was about a bird.
      I did cite my source.

    12. Re: the aim is to reach consensus of opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyway, you could have cited your source, if you really had one, and that would've more than likely been the end of it.

      That has not been my experience with editing wikipedia articles.

      Adding multiple openly accessible online sources, supporting in clear language the statements provided in the article does little to help. Hell, I've even included page numbers, where relevant, to accommodate those editors who, for whatever reason, tag a source a "Not in citation given" or remove the content on that basis because they don't adequately check the sources.

      It's of little help.

      Based on observation and experience, I've given up on wikipedia. I refuse to donate to it. (Yes, I have donated money to open software and content projects before and I expect to in the future.)

      It wouldn't bother me if wikipedia disappeared today. Perhaps the cost of Encyclopedia Britannica would increase afterwards, but probably not by a lot...

  11. MOD PARENT UP by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

    Slashdot has the same issue, of course.

    1. Re: MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parents up. /dot does seem like a gathering place for liberal fascism and bigotry.

    2. Re: MOD PARENT UP by doom · · Score: 1

      /dot does seem like a gathering place for liberal fascism and bigotry.

      Mwah-ha-ha.

  12. Give me a break by Jiro · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:Give me a break by doom · · Score: 1

      The one I like is insiting that "writers" and "writing" has to be termed "editors" and "editing". I was trying to work on the "guidelines" once upon a time, and you're essentially forbidden from using phrases like "When you're writing a piece like this, you need to ask yourself--." No one ever writes anything at wikipedia, the words just magically appear to be hacked up by editors-that-aren't-really-editors.

      Another good one is "weasel words": the wikipedia meaning of that phrase was essentially made up by Evan Promodoru. For example: "War and Peace is widely regarded as Tolstoy's greatest work." See how weaselly that is? It's also true, and not disputed by anyone who knows anything about the subject, a set which does not include your average wikilawyer.

      And slapping a "Weasel" tag on someone's work should by no means be regarded as insulting, because, uh....

    2. Re:Give me a break by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're essentially forbidden from using phrases like "When you're writing a piece like this, you need to ask yourself--."

      I think you misunderstood the problem. Nothing on Wikipedia but discussions should be written in second person.

    3. Re:Give me a break by doom · · Score: 1

      Ah yes: avoidance of second-person is of course critical to the process of writing good articles. Why did I not see this?

      Re-writing that phrase as something like "When writing a piece, the author should consider--" would be trivial, provided the concept of "authorship" didn't violate the house religion.

      It certainly is fun to think of ways to counsel against including personal biases when writing, when you're supposed to pretend that there is no person doing the writing.

    4. Re:Give me a break by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

      Exactly, and here's the key: try using the Daily Mail as a source and see what happens. You will be lucky not to be treated like this editor who had supported another editor's use of Breitbart.

    5. Re:Give me a break by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you want to start calling the first editor of a page its "author"? Why? It's not like the first edit bears any resemblance to the current state of an article.
      Besides, every editor should follow good writing advice, not just the first one to touch a page.

    6. Re:Give me a break by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Distorting the definitions of words and/or being ridiculously pedantic is one thing the left loves doing.

      Trump "I lost some weight"
      CNN "FALSE! Trump lost mass!"
      HuffPo "Trump claims to have ditched mass according to CNN, president no longer Catholic!"
      Buzzfeed "10 Trump quotes that prove he worships the devil, #6 will shock you!" /r/marchagainsttrump "Trump caught on LIVE TELEVISION admitting that he murdered 666 children in satanic rituals to win presidency!"

    7. Re:Give me a break by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're essentially forbidden from using phrases like "When you're writing a piece like this, you need to ask yourself--."

      I think you misunderstood the problem. Nothing on Wikipedia but discussions should be written in second person.

      I think you're misunderstanding the parent poster's problem. They were referring to writing "guidelines", not articles.

      Are you saying that the second person isn't permitted in wikipedia's "guidelines"?

      And the use of the second person was to avoid using, abusing, or misusing the term "editor", and to avoid using the term "author" which also appears to be verboten.

  13. In other words by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    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
  14. Frost Kpist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    recent article put gone Romeo and Share, this news Mechanics. So I'm No matter how *BSD is dead. TOOK PRECEDENCE of the waaring writing is on the discussions on impaired its is dying and its (7000+1400+700)*4 lead to 'cleaner Progress. Any play area Try not TCP/IP stack has ME! It's official

  15. Paragraph-by-paragraph verifiability by tepples · · Score: 1

    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."

    1. Re:Paragraph-by-paragraph verifiability by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1

      Very true. But each paragraph of an article also has to be verifiable.

      Yes, but your previous post was about the NOTABILITY guideline. Obviously if you declare X source is not "reliable," then a paragraph with only that source can be removed.

      But that has nothing to do with the notability guidelines. The entire point of your previous post was about how to pre-emptively ban an entire article through notability guidelines. As the summary notes, whether or not a particular source is "reliable" is often a judgment call. Even a "scholarly" souce can be unreliable if it's discussing information outside of its main purview. (E.g., if you're writing a paragraph on baking different types of bread, citing an academic book on Beethoven's music may not actually be a reasonable "reliable" source on bread-baking technique.)

      I'm not at all making a judgment call on the Daily Mail here, just noting that judging a "reliable source" on a single sentence or something is quite a bit different from pre-emptively declaring an entire article to be non-notable for lack of ANY verifiable sources.

      If your only point was "text with unreliable sources can be deleted," there was no point in even writing your previous post on notability... because basically the entire summary was about the unreliable source policy.

      Wikilawyering at its best -- one policy fails, so quote another, even if it's irrelevant to the point you originally claimed to be making. I don't give a crap about Wikipedia policy guidelines, but your projection of making a pre-emptive strike at any subject matter ("ACK! This may not be notable! DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!!") is actually indicative of many editors at Wikipedia, and I think a major failing of the project. That was the MAIN point of my reply to you -- but your Wikilawyering instincts clearly took over and you chose to try to change the subject to assert your superior knowledge of the guidelines, rather than actually addressing the fact that deletionism is contributing to the ruin of Wikipedia.

      Cheers!

    2. Re:Paragraph-by-paragraph verifiability by tepples · · Score: 1

      deletionism is contributing to the ruin of Wikipedia.

      Would using Wikipedia as a tool to promote hoaxes be superior to deletionism?

  16. Re:Notability would ban that subject in the 1st pl by Xest · · Score: 1

    "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.

  17. I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    editors at Wikipedia had "voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website," calling the publication "generally unreliable."

    First they ban it, then they compliment it? This makes no sense.

  18. Re:Notability would ban that subject in the 1st pl by doom · · Score: 1

    Wikilawyering. That is one of the primary reasons people hate contributing to Wikipedia.

    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?

  19. You see bureaucracy by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    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/
  20. Liberals: We, thegroup. Conservatives: Individuals by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > 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.

  21. Fact "Checking" by calebb · · Score: 1

    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)

  22. thou shalt not deviate by epine · · Score: 1

    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

    The problem in India with the educational system is that the system dictates and student repeats. ... We all had to unlearn how we were educated. And the leaders had to unlearn what they thought leadership was about. Because if you grow up in that kind of system, when you're a leader what you think your role is, is that you're supposed to set direction and make sure nobody deviates from it. That's fundamentally how they saw their role.

    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.

  23. Re:Notability would ban that subject in the 1st pl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  24. If that is the only source you can put it in the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fake bin./

  25. Fact or fiction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "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.

  26. Pity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.