The Daily Mail ban

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

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Aug 07, 2018 11:04 am

It's worth noting here that the outcome of the incident I referred to as the starter for the thread, was that the material was eventually removed, but only on 19 March.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =831222096

....so with the help of one currupt admin, but with literally nobody else supporting Guy Macon's malicious text, because it was frankly indefensible even in the Mail hating game playing rules don't matter environment of Wikipedia, Guy Macon was able to win the second prize he was no doubt after, to have it published for as long as possible. Thousands will have seen it in that time.

Naturally, Guy Macon received no sanctions for this blatant example of tendentious editing, and Drmies faced no sanction for enabling it. Both most likely forgot all about it on March 5, when the debate died, moving on to do other shitty things in other places, as we so often document here. Drmies probably forgot all about his part in it all even earlier. Not his problem that people living and working thousands of miles away suffer real world consequences for his actions I guess.

These people are scum. Macon and Drmies for doing what they did, and everyone else for letting them get away with it.

Still, expecting ethics and standards from Wikipedia is of course, a fool's errand.

It's all been nicely buried away in the archives now, lest interested observers see it......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dail ... ms_section

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Aug 07, 2018 9:55 pm

Hitchins already has a piece out......

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... the-laughs

Pretty hard hitting, identifying a number of their weak spots. The Wikipedians will say their usual bullshit in response, but they'll be wasting their breath, it won't convince anyone but the already converted.

I almost feel sorry for them, that they are this incapable of shooting themselves in the foot. How hard is it to treat someone with respect, to not use their own confusion against them, to not treat them like a fool? Because when you do that to someone who can fight back, this is always what happens.

I posted a comment, inviting him here....
Mr. Hitchins. I am sad to say, your treatment at the hands of the Wikipedians, was not remotely out of the ordinary. Most people don't realise that there's only a very small number of them, a couple of hundred really active users. Making sure "editors" have to get really invested into using the site, devote literally thousands of hours to it, before they understand how it all works, especially the unwritten rules, is a feature, not a bug.

Your case was very complex, and involved a lot of words. If I may, it can be distilled down to a few important points, many of which you already discovered, if you wish to help others learn the lessons that need to be learned about the sham that is the cult of Wikipedia

1. You were not given any leeway for your inexperience
2. They deliberately ignored your explanations of your actions
3. They quite happily assumed you had ill intent
4. Post block, nothing you said made a blind bit of difference
5. Identifying who you were counted against you
6. The others involved faced no sanction for their own wrongdoing

These observations are critical to understanding the group dynamic of Wikipedia. They are all individuals, but it takes bravery to go against the grain. The Wikipedia system uses that to ensure a few key individuals wield excessive power. The person who blocked you, Guy Chapman, is one such individual.

It's important to note, because they will absolutely use it against you by taking these words you wrote literally, there is no jury of your peers on Wikipedia, no trials etc. There isn't really any investigation or adjudication in that sense at all, secret or otherwise. Everyone there is a volunteer, so if there is nothing in it for them, they simply won't bother taking up your case. Which is a problem, when others are motivated by politics and jealousy, to do anything they can to screw you.

Guy Chapman is a long time critic of The Mail, and his claim not to have known who you were when he blocked you, given he blocked you for conflict of interest, is of course laughable. But this is what certain people on Wikipedia can get away with. It is informative to note that it is highly unusual for an editor of ten years, who has never hidden who he was, to be blocked indefinitely as a first order of business.

I would not be surprised to learn the whole thing was crafted in secret, that each Administrator that declined your appeals, was directed to by what they call the Admin IRC channel. Then again, it would not surprise me if they all acted independently.

The sham is that your block was "indefinite", which they claim is no issue because It can be lifted as soon as you say what they need to hear. The system breaks down when, in cases like yours, the blocked person has no way of addressing the moving target that is the reason for the block, especially given their deliberate deafness, nor when the blocked person doesn't really appreciate what it is the Wikipedians want to hear.

Mistakes in the appeals process are easily made, as you found out. Assuming there is justice, assuming there is a fair trial, assuming other people's actions will be looked at, assuming lies, half truths and bias are discounted, assuming anyone will care at all, these are all common mistakes people blocked by Wikipedia make.

It is also important to note, they don't expect you to grovel, but they absolutely expect people to admit wrongdoing, especially indeed where the person doesn't agree they did wrong, quite rightly in your case, given it amounted to a mere misdemeanour, borne of frustration. They claim this is about reassurance that you will not repeat the wrongdoing, but really it is all about ensuring servitude. Free will scares the Wikipedians. It wasn't an accident that you lost your ability to further publicly appeal, around the time you started to show you reject their entire edifice, that you questioned the basis of everything they do. This, they call disruption.

The editor called Kingsindian was only trying to help you, not because he felt sympathy, but because he is on a doomed mission to somehow reform Wikipedia. He has tried many times, and the result is always the same. Others who chimed in, probably did so resigned for he fact their views would be irrelevant. As a kind of weak protest.

If you are interested, you can find more of this sort of information at the aptly named Wikipedia Sucks internet forum.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by sashi » Tue Aug 07, 2018 10:45 pm

If he should stop by I hope he looks over at Mr. Galloway's page now (regarding the Daily Mail story mentioned above...) The snow rolled down the mountain quite a while ago in the discussion about whether the misleading info on his BLP should go or not. It has not been addressed with the same sense of urgency as binning the exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein in his bunker. ^^ (§)

The Request for Comment on the talk page is "currently" running 14-1 against the misrepresentation of his position on Trump and the undue weight it has been given in his BLP. (the lone dissenter being the author of the Misleading Version (aka the Wrong Version™))

Meanwhile, player Cross continues testing the limits of his topic ban at ArbEnforcement. (§)

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:45 pm

Isn't it funny how often an established Wikipedia editor finds themselves universally opposed in their ideas of what is appropriate content? Almost like none of them know what they're doing, the idiot (or worse) wanting to add it, and all the rest who, under their theory of self-governance, should be preventing these idiots (or worse) from doing harm in the first place.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:33 pm

Amid all this talk of conflict of interest, nobody on Wikipedia bats an eyelid when the blocking admin says something like this about the person they blocked (indefinitely, as a first offence, to boot).....
Have you ever read his column? I need to check the article to see if "opinionated" is actually his baptismal middle name. Guy (Help!) 19:14, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
The problem here was not Hitchins, it's having Administrators like Guy Chapman around, and a community too scared (and tbf, too powerless) to clip their wings, if only to just remind them what the role of an Admin is, and is not. Blocking people you have strong opinions about, it is not. Having the integrity to realise you are biased as fuck, and as JP Gordon said (but didn't follow himself even), you can always call on any one of 1,210 colleagues to take an action you think is warranted, as a completely neutral party. There will be hundreds of Admins who have never even heard of Hitchins, and barely heard of the Mail.

Not surprising to see Fram weigh in either. If being an overly opinionated Administrator who cops a bad case of deaf ear whenever it was convenient was ever deemed a bad thing by the Wikipedians, he'd be up against the wall, right alongside Guy.

And since we're discussing the optics of Wikipedia Administration, this isn't a good look either (said to Hitchins' self appointed public defender Kingsindian).....
If you are, as you state in the edit summary, tearing your hair out, you are too invested in this matter. 331dot (talk) 07:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
This comment doesn't come from a disinterested party of course. It came from one of the Administrators who declined an appeal. He was so invested in this issue, that contrary to his claims about users having lives, he was on hand to make several pointedly personal comments about reviewers throughout, was the first to jump in and oppose Hitchins being unmuted, and was one of the first to endorse the original block (a rather pointless exercise, his ongoing support for a block he had declined to lift a day earlier is surely implicit).

331dot is a really great person to look at in this farce, as someone supposedly trusted for their judgement and clue. He stepped in to decline an appeal well past the point it had become clear Hitchins didn't have a clue what he was up against, what he was being accused of, or what he was being asked to do. Like the useless fuck he is, 331dot was just another mindless cog in a mindless machine. I suspect that is why he was being so passive aggressive toward those who find the collective outcome of how things turned out a little unpalatable, even if they agree the initial edit was blockworthy.

This was 331dot's decline, my bolding.....
You have not addressed the reason for your block. As this is a privately run website, it can allow or keep people from editing it as it sees fit. If you decide to address the reason for your block, you may make another request. Looking at it, I must agree with the assessment of the original admin, and in order to be unblocked we will need to be assured that-even if you don't agree that what you did was wrong- your behavior will be different in the future. I am declining this request. 331dot (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
There isn't a sensible person in this world who would be able to guess what Hitchins was being asked to do by this drone, since anyone with eyes can see that by then, Guy's reason for blocking had changed multiple times......

1. "adding commentary and your personal analysis into articles"
2. Not making a single edit that wasn't related to himself (COI)
3. Not making a single edit that "comes close to meeting Wikipedia policy"
4. editing like a Daily Mail columnist ( "adding that the complaint might as well have been made to the fire brigade or Tesco." )

Even after 331dot's mindless intervention, it changed further, presented by Guy at AN as an alphabetsoup, summarised as "Overall: WP:NOTHERE. Very definitely."

So what exactly what 331st asking of Hitchins here? I doubt even he really knows, and if he claims he does, who is to know he isn't just making it up now? He didn't seem to think of was important to clarify it for Hitchins.

Other declining admins up to the point 331dot got involved, had at least been consistent in arguing the block was for "inserting opinion as fact and heavily editorialising in articles related to controversial figures", even though they were quite disingenuously pretending this was Hitchins editing normally, and he posed a continuing risk. Hence his belief they seek to cast him as a fucking idiot.

Even before he explained it fifty times, to no avail, it was already clear for all reviewers, that the edits were not meant as serious edits that should stick, they were attempts to draw community attention to an editorial impasse, caused by Charles being like every other Wikipedian in history, a monumental dick. He wasn't to know the only attention it would draw, was a block. And a ridiculously punitive indefinite one at that.

In his own way, as a little dimwitted coward who is apparently in awe of his more senior colleagues and blind to everything else, 331dot was every bit an integral part of the mindless bureaucracy and kangaroo court Hitchins says he experienced, as Guy Chapman and Charles were.

And as a Hasten The Dayer, I take some comfort in that. Because it destroys any notion that reformers and idealists like Kingsindian might have, that the Wikipedia community is learning, evolving. This fucktick was promoted in March 2018, by a whopping landslide. He was identified a good candidate by none other than Ritchie.

The Wikipedia community is literally as blind as ever, as to what will ultimately destroy it. Hitchins writing about his experiences will merely Hasten The Day.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by AndrewForson » Wed Aug 08, 2018 9:06 pm

So what's the plan for using Hitchens for further exposés? Anyone?

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by ericbarbour » Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:20 am

CrowsNest wrote:Hitchins already has a piece out......

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... the-laughs

Huh, I'm getting a blank screen from that URL. Wonder if the DM blanked it because Jimbo made threats or something.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:33 am

ericbarbour wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:Hitchins already has a piece out......

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... the-laughs

Huh, I'm getting a blank screen from that URL. Wonder if the DM blanked it because Jimbo made threats or something.
My bad, I chopped the url and lost the extension.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... aughs.html

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:57 am

Eurrggh. Just found this disgusting userbox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ritc ... Daily_Mail

http://archive.is/mnlgd

This user hates the Daily Mail and thinks any publication that claims "using Facebook causes cancer" is about as trustworthy as Jimmy Savile in the Cheltenham Ladies' College
Unfortunately, the Wikipediots who display this message may have problems finding any source they can trust, because the BBC ran with the exact same story.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7898510.stm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... ancer.html

Whether you believe the claims made in the pieces, and the British Health service have written a lengthy rebuttal, it is important to note that if the Mail are supposed to have made a mistake running with it, then the BBC did too. But you will also note, neither source claimed it was true or even settled science, they correctly presented it as the opinion of one psychologist, writing ín the journal of the Institute of Biology.

(Original paper)
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... etworking'

(Rebuttal)
https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/facebook-cancer-risk/

The Wikipediots can hardly claim this was a one off error by the BBC either, since the same guy has had his opinion aired on their platform on other issues too.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/education ... ychologist

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/education ... body-image

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18149510

This nasty little box illustrates fairly well the mistakes made in banning the Mail. The Wikipedians looked at headlines instead of the actual substance of the stories, and didn't remotely care if what they were saying about the story, was equally applicable to sources they consider the gold standard. Ultimately, they just don't get what news media even is.

I think they think news media is meant to be Wikipedia, even though it is worth noting Wikipedia didn't even start insisting on only carrying medical claims if they were backed by systematic reviews until recently. And there lies the real truth, this nasty little box doesn't even make sense since the story would never be admissible on Wikipedia, whether the Mail was banned or not, whether they replaced it with the BBC piece or not, because it is not reporting a systematic review. Inadmissible whatever the source, end of.

What it does do, is illustrate the level of bile that was behind the ban. Perhaps because it is such a disgusting box in the manner of its comparison, it is not actually displayed by many users at all. Despite Ritchie333 having hawked it around multiple venues, tickled pink at his edginess. Loser.

Illustrating the morally bankrupt nature of Wikipedia is the fact that one of the users who does display it, is none other than Guy Chapman (JzG), who recently banned Peter Hitchins, a Mail contributor. Guy knows fine well what Wikipedia's medical sourcing rules are, so he knows the message of this box is irrelevant, Mail ban or no Mail ban. It only serves one purpose, to signal the displayer of it happily equates Mail journalists with pedophiles. Which certainly does sound something the vile Rtchie333 and Guy would do.

By any means necessary.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by AndrewForson » Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:38 am

The Wikipedians didn't even look at the headlines. Although "Facebook causes cancer" is the sort of thing you might imagine a trashy tabloid might print (remember "WWII bomber found on moon"?) it is not what the Daily Mail wrote -- the headline at the link you give is actually "How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer" which while dramatic is not an unfair rendition of what the original publication was about (the "how" referring to the health effects of social isolation). The BBC headline "Online networking 'harms health'" is somewhat less measured.

Of course one can understand why Wikipedians would be resistant to the whole notion that spending too much time on a MMORPG was bad for you ...

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