Wikipedia Sucks!

While it has been obvious for a while that Stephen Harrison's pieces for Slate on Wikipedia are not exactly objective, it was surprising how utterly one sided this one was.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/wi ... iable.html

There is literally not one iota of criticism of either the process used or the people involved in banning the Mail from Wikipedia. Every claim is repeated, without question.

Guy Macon is presented as stable human, capable of laughing off or ignoring "trolling". His RfA says different, even in the opinion of his colleagues. How ironic then, that just as this piece dropped, Guy Macon had just been blocked for 48 hours for mocking another editor's gender. And he has reacted to that exactly the way the people who opposed his RfA, predicted he would.

If you need a reminder....

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... =19&t=2065

He's had a total fucking meltdown. Paranoid delusions, taking the community hostage, with all the drama and all the victimhood. Oh God, the victimhood. It's the whole fucking nine yards. And once he realises nobody gives a crap, he'll forget all about it and shamelessly return to his previously scheduled programming, like it never even happened.

Well it did happen. It is happening right now. And so, as is my way, he'll not be forgetting it any time soon. He will know the Darkest Knight.

I suppose I'm just being "evil" by pointing out these inconvenient truths. But as a certain Wikipedia editor used to say in a very different context, and slightly modified for my own tastes, if you don't want Momma Bear to rip your bastard faces off, then don't steal the Captain Crunch from right out the hungry mouths of her little cubs. They need to grow up big and strong, to keep Momma comfy in her retirement. I don't do this for shits and giggles, for fuck's sake.

Anyway. To business. Review time.

It perhaps shouldn't be a surprise the author is this willing to swallow and regurgitate this fanciful view of the process and the people, given he included passages like this....

The Wikipedia community’s deprecation of the Daily Mail shows that the project’s volunteers are unwilling to accept that all publications are equally reliable. Moreover, Wikipedians are willing to reject newspapers that flagrantly disregard the truth—even if those publications are otherwise popular.

Is the man who wrote that, going to be at all inclined to look for the counter-narrative?

I think not.

This man isn't even capable of accurately conveying the actual narrative, as that paragraph shows. Because of course, the Wikipedians had a very good understanding of Reliable Sources and how to determine them long before the extraordinary step of inventing this brand new concept of deprecation.

Deprecation was, for a good EIGHTEEN MONTHS, merely a sign that the Daily Mail apparently posed such a unique threat to Wikipedia, they needed a blanket ban. For eighteen months, the Daily Mail was the only depreciated source. Needless to say, the idea that this problem was that it was just a popular newspaper that lies too much, was obvious bunk.

As is the idea this was about newspapers at all. Embarassed at the ongoing farce of having banned the Daily Mail, but not sources like Breitbart, well, shit, wouldn't you know, eighteen months later, they finally started deprecating other sources. Breitbart and InfoWars. Y'know, the POPULAR NEWSPAPERS?!?!?!

It was actually another SIXTEEN MONTHS after that, before they deprecated another British newspaper, and very few actual newspapers had been deprecated in the meantime, amid yet more official rulings that lunatic sources be lunatic sources. That newspaper was the News Of The World. Which was both popular, and infamous for being lying bastards. The Wikipedia editors wish the Mail had scandals of that magnitude. Even just one would do. And of course, that they were so bad they had to shut the paper.

Fucking. Dream. On.

So his narrative is pure crap. The process was originally to ban the Daily Mail. Not just because it is a popular newspaper, but because it was so widely trusted by ordinary Wikipedia editors, all of whom knew and understood Wikipedia's sourcing policies, which until then were sensible and largely context based, that it drove a tiny minority of leftist activists like David Gerard and Guy Macon mad with fury. They seized on Hillbillyholiday's deceptive proposal, and ran with it, for their own sick agenda. They are warped. What they did, is warped. Accurate reporting is accurate.

The subsequent bans were only really to cover up this basic and obvious fact. They had targetted the Mail, and a dislike of its popularity AND its politics, was the only rational explanation. They all know that sources like Breitbart and the News of the World weren't being used at anything like the level Wikipedia was using the Mail. Doesn't matter. File that shit under Wikipedia's Dirty Secrets.

The specific flaws with the piece are varied and numerous. Anyone who reads my stuff, knows what they are. There was nothing new, sadly. Which kind of shows where it all came from. But they all fit the pattern of a man who was not simply incapable of finding the truth, he didn't even try. Why bother, when it could destroy your already chosen hook?

I will leave with this one note. It's the inclusion of this line.....

The British paper is often compared to the U.S. tabloid the National Enquirer.

So, I see this claim a lot, but only really from Wikipedia Mail haters. They don't typically show their sources. Perhaps because HERE, I JUST PULLED THIS OUT MY ANUS, DO YOU LIKE IT? doesn't convey the level of seriousness they are after.

So where did he get it? What are his sources? If he didn't act as a journalist in standing up that one line, what does that mean for the rest of the piece? What does that mean for Slate's apparenty much cherished Wikipedia classification of reliable?

If it came from somewhere other than directly from the Wikishits he talked to, why not mention it? Impress us with the names of the media scholars, journalism studies and other reputable sources that he read, to come to this extraordinary conclusion.

Because as it stands, it's obvious bullshit. Something the dumber Wikipedia Mail haters just say without thinking, simply because it sounds really bad. That's how prejudice works. But other than making us LAUGH OUR ASSES OFF at the reminder that Wikipedia didn't even deprecate the National Enquirer until TWO YEARS after they had banned the Mail, it's actually reminding us of what we can verify through numerous quotes by highly respected Wikipedia Administrators like Guy Chapman. The Mail was banned precisely because it is nothing like the National Enquirer. It is seen by most people, as a real newspaper. Probably because it is.

Nothing drives the Wikishits madder, than that simple fact of life. Mad enough to come up with a unique solution, a targetted solution. A solution for the Mail, and only the Mail. It was noted, at the time, the curiously selective nature of this act. A surprise departure from a system where the policies and guidelines dictate the actions, and special, unique, named situation specific laws, are not really a thing. Other than "WP:DAILYMAIL", they still aren't. It's right there, in the initial news reporting that he cites in his piece. What's up with that, they asked? Um, yeah, we'll get back to you, they said.

It's popular, its right wing, and Wikipedia can't seemingly do anything to persuade anyone it's not a newspaper. I'd be pissed too.

Would I see this Slate piece as my vindication? Nah.

But that's just me. I'm smart enough to get paid handsomely for the sort of journalism where you can actually cite your SOURCES, and they aren't.....

* "Dumb Bastard On Wikipedia Number One"
* "Dumb Bastard On Wikipedia Number Two"
* "Dumb Bastard On Wikipedia Number Three"

My best British friend/ neighbor loves the Daily Mail, they send her notices on her device. Everyday she shows/ tells me the terrible, mostly racial, stories about America, that US media ignores.

Happy Independence Day from American bombs, meddling in foreign elections and coup d’ etats.

might as well drop this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q0OkqWcgMU

Basic fucking research would have revealed stuff like this recent quote is the day to day reality of the "peace" on Wikipedia.

It's some fucking 1984 level bullshit this. Supremely ironic.

For even more ironic context, this comment was actually spotted in a debate where the word disinformation is flying about like snow in a blizzard....

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

Unsurprisingly, the same people who lied a out the Mail, are trying that shit on other sources. And unsurprisingly, its ALWAYS the right wing outlets, especially ones that are high on opinions and dare to be selective in their selection and prioritisation of facts. Or, as it used to be called, editorial freedom.

The Daily Mail deprecation RFC came about because it was a clearly terrible source, but some editors insisted it was excellent and insisted on using it anyway; this meant there was a genuine dispute over the matter. .... - David Gerard (talk) 15:05, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

The RfC came about because the Mail was widely viewed as a reliable source and thus used on a great many articles by a great many editors, to the great displeasure of a minority who thought it terrible, such as David.

As the award winning journalists of the Daily Mail revealed to the world, when all was said and done and the RfC closed, the tiny number of participants, and the even smaller number that came out on top, still represented a drop in the ocean compared to the numbers of editors who had, over the years, used the Mail as a source.

The ban was always about a handful of insiders correcting the supposed mistake of the majority. They admitted as much.

That reality based version of history doesn't sit well with David, since it is far too easy to look at that context and wonder if the minority didn't hate being overuled so much and so often when it came down to specific arguments about specific uses, they actually resorted to disinformation and lies to achieve their dream outcome, a ban on all uses.

Spoiler alert, the person who started the RfC admitted to having used "Daily Mail style tactics" to win. Which I think we can safely assume wasn't meant to mean they assembled facts and opinions that were so good they were widely read and won awards.

So to justify it, David comes up with a whole new version of history, where somehow it was just a tiny minority who weren't buying this idea that the Mail's actual business model is to print lies and just pay the fines. Obvious horseshit is obvious.

Who knows, maybe he even believes this is what happened. Wikipedia has no entry test. Nobody knows David isn't a dog.

People still want to use the Mail, clearly, they just can't be bothered to deal with lying pricks like David.

Who but a fucking moron would ever entertain the idea that any website where David is allowed to rewrite easily checked history, is a venue that is biased toward information and against disinformation. I'm just sayin'.

They also did this to the "far-left" Grayzone: https://mronline.org/2020/06/15/wikiped ... e-editing/