The Daily Mail ban

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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WhyEvenBother
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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by WhyEvenBother » Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:39 pm

Wanna see a train-wreck of a close? The Sun Ban close is a beaut:

Summary:- Analyzing the substance of the arguments; there's a consensus in ☑ favor of the proposal.
Accordingly, the Sun is designated as a generally-unreliable publication. References from the Sun shall be actively discouraged from being used in any article and they shall neither be used for determining the notability of any subject. An edit filter should be put in place to warn editors attempting to use the Sun as a reference. Nothing enacted in this closure, over-rides WP:ABOUTSELF.
Analysis:-
There exists a broad consensus (even among-st the opposing faction) that the Sun is quite unreliable as a source for a variety of reasons including outright fabrication and is perceived as so, per Feminist's cites. More or less, it is a flag-bearer of sensationalist tabloid-journalism.
Whilst some have noted their thriving in an environment governed by strict libel laws and a strong code-of-conduct, (whose breaches are rigidly governed), they don't match the numerical strength of the supporters.
Many of the opposing argument(s), when analysed fail to mount as effective rebuttals to the above point.
Advising an editor (esp. those outside of Great Britain) against using a part. source; in light of their unreliability, is not akin to treating them as idiots (does everybody under the sun know about the quality of the Sun?) and we have a history of using EFs to warn against usage of such seemingly-reliable sources. Furthermore, this closure does neither permit a blacklisting nor a wholesale nuking of all Sun references, without any discretion.
That we use other trash-sources is never a good reason to oppose (for it can be effectively weaponised as a circular argument across discussions, to prevent deprecation of any source at all) and there is nothing prohibiting any interested editor from launching referendum-RFCs for those sources.
In contrary to some arguments, the audience-reach is not a quite-deciding factor in the wiki-reliability of a source and press-freedom hardly equates to granting a liberty for editors' using low-quality sources in writing an encyclopedia. Neither do I see any political motivation in the RFC.
There are some philosophical arguments against the very concept of prohibiting the usage of a source in this manner; the deciding of which has effectively boiled down to a count-of-noses.
I also note that many have noted that any uncontroversial information which can be sourced to the Sun (sports score-lines et al) can almost-always be sourced to another source of repute.
P.S:-There has been a feeling among the opposing side that this can lead to a draconian purge of Sun references from WP without due discretion and that the newbies will bear the brunt of any over-zealous enforcement.
Hence, I will urge all editors to exercise due restrain and use common sense; whilst dealing with removals. For an example, please harvest some efforts to source a cited-info to a reliable source, prior to removal of a DM cite.
P.P.S:- FWIW, I do not find the discussions about the use/misuse of DS notices any relevant to the issue and whether any existing DS covers these issues can be staked out over another RFC or placed before the arbitrators(??); if there's an active bone of contention. Same about blocks.


Pure nonsense, and, embarrassingly, obviously a cut/paste of the DM close, right down to including references to the "DM" in it.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Jan 22, 2019 1:19 am

The Wikipedians have supposedly debated the issue of the Daily Mail's reliability twice now, and twice have supposedly come to conclusions firm enough that they warranted the unprecedented step of a ban, and confirmation of said ban.

Isn't it a little fucked up then, that they still don't seem sure of the answer questions like this.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... Daily_Mail

It's a basic question, yet these people cannot answer it, not with any certainty or persuasive authority. Why? Because they don't know shit about shit. Just as with the central question, they're guessing, framing their answers based on what they want the truth to be, not what it actually is.

This is the problem with Wikipedia. It is worse than an amateur project, because at least amateurs know they are amateurs. These people genuinely seem to think they are qualified to even be opening their rat holes on this or any other subject where the only people's opinions who matter, are the ones with the required expertise to give it, be that as a professional or an amateur.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Feb 02, 2019 5:55 am

CrowsNest wrote:This is the problem with Wikipedia. It is worse than an amateur project, because at least amateurs know they are amateurs. These people genuinely seem to think they are qualified to even be opening their rat holes on this or any other subject where the only people's opinions who matter, are the ones with the required expertise to give it, be that as a professional or an amateur.

Unlike most Internet know-alls, these amateurs have a successful fundraising nonprofit to support their delusions. And the deep love of Google and the "digital culture" telling them how much they matter. This horseshit is going to continue for many years while the "content" piles up, good or bad.

Just saw that business about The Sun. Hilarious "closing statement". Whoever wrote that shit has a long career at the UN waiting for them. As an extremely petty and ineffective bureaucrat.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by Carrite » Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:32 am

ericbarbour wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:This is the problem with Wikipedia. It is worse than an amateur project, because at least amateurs know they are amateurs. These people genuinely seem to think they are qualified to even be opening their rat holes on this or any other subject where the only people's opinions who matter, are the ones with the required expertise to give it, be that as a professional or an amateur.

Unlike most Internet know-alls, these amateurs have a successful fundraising nonprofit to support their delusions.


You are conflating us participants in the encyclopedia-building project with the ravenous 50-foot tapeworm that is the WMF.

RfB

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by Kumioko » Sun Feb 03, 2019 3:41 pm

Carrite wrote:
ericbarbour wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:This is the problem with Wikipedia. It is worse than an amateur project, because at least amateurs know they are amateurs. These people genuinely seem to think they are qualified to even be opening their rat holes on this or any other subject where the only people's opinions who matter, are the ones with the required expertise to give it, be that as a professional or an amateur.

Unlike most Internet know-alls, these amateurs have a successful fundraising nonprofit to support their delusions.


You are conflating us participants in the encyclopedia-building project with the ravenous 50-foot tapeworm that is the WMF.

RfB

They are both different, but they are both problematic. If one is a 50 foot tapeworm the other is the infested digestive track full of dung that tape worm lives in. I will let you decide which of those 2 analogies is the WMF and which is the community.
#BbbGate

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Feb 05, 2019 7:25 am

Carrite wrote:You are conflating us participants in the encyclopedia-building project with the ravenous 50-foot tapeworm that is the WMF.

YOU'RE STUCK WITH THEM, BUB. Don't complain to ME. I suspect that no one else on this forum will have any sympathy for you either.

If you don't like it, either start a coup d'etat against WMF management and take it over, or start your own project.

People today only get tapeworms for two reasons: extreme poverty, or extreme stupidity. Choose one.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:12 pm

Just been reminded by the real media that the Mail was at the forefront of exposing the corruption at FIFA, a perfect example of how quality journalism covering the inner workings of what are effectively legally protected cults, often simply isn't possible without hiding your real identity.

So maybe that explains why the Foundation is perfectly happy for the unpaid volunteers to shield them from scrutiny by unilaterally misinterpreting their Terms of Use, making it appear all nice and legal.

And who knows, Dennis Brown was flat broke for a while, and now he's not. He hates the WMF, but money is money, right? And you can't actually bribe someone who doesn't actually hold a public office or paid position, right?

Quite clever when you think about it. A useful tool when the usual tactic of giving newcomers the third degree for being a single-purpose account, doesn't have the required effect.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Mar 30, 2019 9:06 pm

:roll:
If The Daily Mail The Fubar Times is unreliable, any reliable reporter working for them is just going to have to put up with being considered unreliable as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:55, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Those with not so long memories, will remember Guy Macon claiming the exact opposite would be true. Sure, he probably didn't believe it at the time, but in his crusade against the Mail, he was rather struggling to come up with a plausible way Wikipedia could cope with the fact that because the Mail is a heavyweight newspaper with the sort of journalists that meant it regularly secures exclusives that any serious encyclopedia with a reputation for creating up to the minute articles on current events would be absolute morons to exclude, then it was always going to find itself in a tough spot if declaring the entire contents of the Mail, and all derivative reports, as presumably completely fabricated, as was Macon's professional opinion.

Is anyone at Wikipedia ever going to admit the total lies and utter bollocks this ban rests upon?

Unsurprisingly, while shitheels like Macon are still talking a good game, in the land of reality, where you might assume this bullshit ban had been all about clearing out unreliable information, the efforts to clear out references to the Mail from the encyclopedia seems to have stopped, and might have even slipped back.

There are now 3,418 instances found in this search:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?se ... B%7D&ns0=1

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Apr 12, 2019 7:24 pm

Fans of irony might like to know that the Daily Mail appears to be perfectly reliable as a source for Jimmy Wales when he's apparently got nothing else to point to except anonymous sources......
Child's name
I am reliably informed that Hugh Grant's second child is not named "John Mungo Grant". The correct name has not, as far as I have been able to determine, ever been published. The name "John Mungo Grant", which is a portion of Hugh Grant's full name "Hugh John Mungo Grant" is reported sometimes in the tabloid press, but I believe that this is the result of people misreading a possibly confusing paragraph in the first piece to appear about the boy's birth, in People Magazine

This story in the Daily Mail says "Grant’s son - who the Mail is not naming - was revealed when he suddenly added himself to the boy’s birth certificate, more than a year after he was born."

I believe this is sufficient evidence to show that the boy's name has not been made public, and I believe that we have good reason not to name the son at all, and certainly we should not use the wrong name.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Mon May 13, 2019 7:58 pm

Don't trust the Sun newspaper blindly, would be my advice.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:49, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Don't trust it at all, is the current position of Wikipedia.

Jimmy should probably just quit commenting on Wikipedia matters at all these days, he's massively out of touch with what they do, and more importantly, why they do it (giving evidence before Parliament Jimmy for example might stupidly assume that with the Sun and Mail banned, the left leaning Mirror is too).

The Daily Mirror is a tabloid newspaper that publishes tabloid journalism. There is no consensus on whether its reliability is comparable to other British tabloids, such as Daily Mail or The Sun.
NO CONSENSUS.

:lol:

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