Editor Guy Macon was one of the people who led the charge to achieve the 'ban' on using the Daily Mail as a source. He's just reignited the issue in ways that could open him up to being sued, more of which near the bottom of this post. For now, some background.....
This ban was a joke of a decision, clearly motivated by the politics of Wikipedians like Macon, who hate the right wing popular press, not by issues of reliability or concern for living individuals. The fact the Wikipedians have stayed silent on the fabrications the 'discussion' contained, illustrates accuracy was not their concern. The fact the discussion contained numerous defamatory statements against living people, proves that was not their concern either.
Perhaps revealing the poor performance of the media in these changing times, where they put little effort into actually investigating how Wikipedia really works because there's no clicks in it, specifically how they happily ignore their own rules if it serves their innate biases and personal agendas, the best reporting of what really happened, can only be found from a Forbes Contributor.....
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/02/10/what-wikipedias-daily-mail-ban-tells-us-about-the-future-of-online-censorship/
I recommend the entire piece to readers, it is compelling in its exposure of the fucked up way the Wikipedians and the WMF handled this farce. On the odd occasion light does penetrate this darkness, the Wikipedians have been in denial about what really happened, right from the get go.Strangely, a review of the comments advocating for a prohibition of the Mail yields not a single data-driven analysis performed in the course of this discussion. In fact, the “fact checking” stage of the prohibition is perhaps best summed up by the user who proposed the prohibition in the first place: “A list of reasons why would be enormous, it doesn't need reiterating, the paper is trash, pure and simple.”
.....
To put this into context - the absolute entirety of the body of evidence used to place a blanket prohibition on the Mail was that out of the billions of Internet users that come into contact with the platform’s content, 50 people said anecdotally that they disliked the newspaper for unspecified reasons.
Even when the person who launched the debate later admitted he had lied to achieve his aims, and had primed the left wing newspaper The Guardian to run the story of the 'ban' immediately, which put the Mail completely on the back foot in terms of their right of reply, the Wikipedians did nothing to set aside the decision, not even to re-run it with strict adherence to Wikipedia's own conduct rules, which as written do actually prioritise data and reason over anecdote, emotion and basic deception, so as to ensure they had a bullet proof consensus.
To remind people, this is how the discussion initiator Hillbillyholiday gloated.....
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/wikipedia ... ree-press/
That's a reliable source, so the Wikipedian's refusal to add that to the Daily Mail article is of course, evidence of bias. One particularly egregious lie he told was this.....
Even though his lie was immediately spotted by another Wikipedian, this evidently had no effect on the discussion, or the closing admin's deliberations. Later, while posting as "Smiley" on Wikipediocracy, he was even more candid in explaining this true motives.....IPSO 2016: Daily Mail was the worst publication, with a total of 17 sanctions for inaccuracy. The Sun followed with 14, the Daily Express with 12. The Independent and Guardian had none. --Hillbillyholiday talk 09:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
IPSO does not regulate the Independent or the Guardian. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtop ... 53#p208853
Hilariously, having gloated about how the Mail couldn't find him so as to exact revenge, he crapped his pants when they only went and did just that.....Smiley wrote:It damaged the Mail's reputation worldwide.thekohser wrote:
...the effect of that ban has been what, exactly?Yeah, that toothekohser wrote:
You fell for "Hillbillyholiday's" whole purpose of this -- to create drama.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... genda.html
Unsurprisingly, he has since been blocked from Wikipedia several times, as an activist editor who has no respect for the site's own rules. This still hasn't led the Wikipedians to reflect on their decision to 'debate' his 'proposal', which singularly targeted the Mail, not tabloids in general, as if it was merely the neutral expression of concern for Wikipedia's integrity, and not an attempt to pursue his personal agenda through the press, using Wikipedia and the Wikipedians as merely useful idiots in an epic episode of trolling.
Perhaps the best evidence that the ban had nothing to do with reliability, is that since the ban came into effect, the Wikipedians have done virtually nothing to remove the existing instances of use of the Mail as a reference in Wikipedia articles. It numbers in the thousands, making Wikipedia the biggest source of incoming links the paper has.
At the time of the ban, over a year ago now, this search returned around 4,500 hits, and now it is only down to 4,100.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&profile=default&fulltext=1&search=dailymail.co.uk+OR+dailymail.com
The latest incident in this ongoing saga provides yet more proof as to the intent of the Wikipedians who drove this ban to fruition. Guy Macon has ridiculously tried to force his own interpretations of the reasons for the ban, into the Mail's own Wikipedia article.
His first attempt.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daily_Mail&diff=next&oldid=821808540
After being rebuffed, an attempt to add it in a slightly different way.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =827561467
And when that was opposed, a second attempt to insert his original wording......
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =827735196
It wouldn't be hard for a decent lawyer to establish Guy Macon's motives, and link them to the defamatory statements now being published on Wikipedia in their article about the Daily Mail. It averages over 2,000 page views a day, which is important in terms of calculating potential damages.
Macon recently made this statement on the very prominent venue that is Jimmy Wales' talk page.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=819799503
It essentially repeats the contents of his attempted change to the article as his own view, and all it offers up as a source for these defamatory statements, are the words of a disgruntled ex-employee of the Mail.
Indeed, his very next edit was to propose his opinions be added to the article......
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Daily_Mail&diff=prev&oldid=819801865
That then led to the first insertion above.
If the Mail chose to unleash the dogs of war against Macon for these edits, it's hard to see how the WMF, in particularly Jimmy Wales, could reasonably claim to not be co-defendants, given their various statements in the wake of the ban. Indeed, if they refused, if all they did was offer Guy some money for his legal defence on the basis he's ultimately legally liable, I can see that causing uproar among the Wikipediots, the vast majority clearly believing that trashing the Mail is a perfectly good use of Wikipedia.