Wikipedia bans The Sun

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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CrowsNest
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Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:28 am

Gotcha. Fake news.

In reality, the discussion as to whether or not to ban The Sun as a reliable source on Wikipedia, despite being on the noticeboard longer than the recent reconfirmation of the Mail ban, has simply slid into the archives without being formally closed.

How is that possible, I hear you ask. Well, it is a quirk of the Wikipedia software that it will archive anything you put in an archive box, even if the reason you did that was because......
Writing a closure-statement within 48h. Please wait. Thankfully, WBGconverse 05:46, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
It wasn't archived until the fifteenth however, so clearly the statement within 48h never arrived.

It would be cynical to suggest this has happened on purpose. It suffices to point out, nobody seems all that bothered this debate was not summarised, as promised.

Most people will be able to quickly spot why it wasn't closed. It can't look very good when you manage to get 2/3 support for confirmation of the Mail ban, but for The Sun, it is far closer (29 supporters, 24 opposers).

Tough to explain that disparity, when, if you consulted any actual reliable source, you would realise The Sun is deservedly viewed by academia and the great British public alike, as a worthless rag. It is easy to explain when you realise much of the anti-Mail sentiment on Wikipedia comes from people who are mad as hell that neither the public nor academia views the Mail as unreliable, and are well able to tell the difference between what the Wikipedians clearly don't like about it (their editorial choices and political stances) and what is a mark of unreliability (factual errors made at a rate which would be significant for a paper of their size and reach).

I mean, seriously, who even wastes their time reporting The Sun for a factual error? That would be like reporting Wikipedia for a factual error. Do the Wikipediots not even realise why the 'red tops' are collectively grouped together under that derisory moniker? Their encyclopedia is no help, but they have Google right?

The Sun is the paper that gave us phone hacking and Hillsborough. Scandals of a similar size have been seen at their left wing counter-part, The Mirror. When asked to come up with similar examples of scandals from the Mail, all the Wikipediots can come up with, is that they supported Hitler in the thirties.

The utter ridiculousness of reporting The Daily Star for a factual error, probably explains why, if we used the Wikipedian's only example of non-anecdotal evidence for measuring a paper's unreliability, namely IPSO stats, we would have to assume that paper is more reliable than The Times. Some seriously retarded Wikipedians even suggested The Mail is the British equivalent of the National Enquirer. Ask anyone in Britain, and depending on precisely what unedifying aspect of their content you mean, they will instead finger one of the red tops for that ignomy. Most frequently, The Daily Star.

When it comes to making compelling statistical or factual arguments to prove unreliability as a unique issue, the Mail-hating Wikipedians know nothing about how to compare the reliability of the different titles in the British media. If they did, constructing a case to ban The Sun should be twice as easy as they claimed it was for The Mail, and they claimed that was really easy.

What really gives the game away, is the fact that The Sun is little used as a source on Wikipedia. The Mail is still used by the thousands. Does that sound like they got the outcome of those debates the right way around to you?

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by Dysklyver » Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:23 am

Well the Sun, lets see...
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Yeah what the hell were those people voting that "it's reliable" even thinking?

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:11 am

Fair is fair, if they are gonna ban UK tabloids they should also ban Twitter "references" and random blogs. (Lol that won't happen!)

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Jan 25, 2019 2:27 am

They banned it. Noting it here, because I suspect given the fact the formal closure happened post-archive, nobody else will have a clue this even happened. So Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =878489732

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.

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Jan 25, 2019 2:40 am

They've got themselves in a right mess now. Obviously the move to ban the Sun was only done so they can say, rather unconvincingly, that there was no reason behind them singling out the Mail. But all it does is beg the question, well, if you're going to ban those two, if all it takes is to simply show a paper is as bad if not worse than the Mail, then why not ban The Daily Star, The Mirror, The Daily Express, the Evening Standard or the Metro?

Due to the unique way Wikipedia works, the only way you will get an answer, is if you table formal proposals to ban each of these as well.

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by Kumioko » Sat Jan 26, 2019 12:57 am

I wonder who's next, there are a lot of questionable references used on Wikipedia not the least of which are the Huffington Post, the Onion, etc. This could put them on a pretty slippery slope and could cause a fairly large number of articles impossible to source.
#BbbGate

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by Dysklyver » Sun Jan 27, 2019 1:07 pm

The Onion. :?

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by Kumioko » Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:34 am

I was thinking that. Babylon Bee or Huffington Post if any of those are still allowed. I see the Duffel Blog is even used a few times.
#BbbGate

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:06 am

As I said in the DM thread: this is a great example of bureaucratic doublespeak/drivel. Perhaps it will be used in journalism schools someday....

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.

Signed by ∯WBG at 14:14, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... C:_The_Sun

If they keep generating "policies" like this, someday Wikipedia will resemble the European Union's crazy-quilt of laws and regulations. Often badly written and worse than useless. (Ask me about ROHS sometime!)

On 2nd thought, they have probably already made it. There are megabytes of text behind this now. It just keeps growing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... guidelines

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Re: Wikipedia bans The Sun

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:29 am

Because no one else did it: let me quote David Gerard's "valuable contribution" to that shitstorm.
The claim it's "politics" is baseless. The Times has the same publisher and politics as The Sun. We accept The Times because it's a newspaper of record, knows it, and comports itself like one. We don't accept The Sun because it's tabloid trash full of made-up rubbish. The Daily Mail wants to be treated like a newspaper of record, but behaves like tabloid trash and fills itself with made-up rubbish. I suggest that continuing to make personal attacks on editors who disagree with you is exceedingly unlikely to convince them - David Gerard (talk) 16:34, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

As I already pointed out, your claims are obvious nonsense. The Times and The Sun have the same publisher and the same politics; but The Times is a newspaper of record, so we accept it, and The Sun is tabloid trash, so we don't. You've got some WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT going on here - David Gerard (talk) 23:59, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

He still thinks he's a genius! And still talks like a crazy parrot! Maybe he turned into a bat when midnight struck on December 30? Bats can't type on a keyboard, or quote WP:BLAHBLAH crap!

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