The Daily Mail ban

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

Post by sashi » Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:24 pm

CrowsNest wrote:
sashi wrote:I don't think the MediaWatch story makes DM (or Google) look too good.
Because........?


they -- like Wikipedia -- seem to be getting google juice for free by swiping people's work.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Dec 26, 2018 12:21 pm

sashi wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:
sashi wrote:I don't think the MediaWatch story makes DM (or Google) look too good.
Because........?


they -- like Wikipedia -- seem to be getting google juice for free by swiping people's work.
As a recognised newspaper with mass readership, they are perfectly entitled to be listed very highly in a search engine. Wikipedia has no such claim to deserve such recognition, and we know out of the two of them, which one gets financial assistance from Google, which one is seen as more of a direct benefit to Google's future existence.

As for whether this is really "swiping" or not (read:theft, right?) that is rather the point, is it not? Where you see theft, I, and that ABC source, eventually, begrudgingly, sees a possibly legal exploitation of a market opportunity, being exploited so well it is simply making their competitors mad and inducing them to look to wholly disreputable means to unfairly level the playing field.

The Mail argues that what they are doing is legal. Unless or until it's critics find the backbone to challenge that assumption, their efforts to otherwise damage their reputation can be seen as nothing more than the same sour grapes that drives the Wikipedians.

If the WMF wants to see itself as more than just an encyclopedia now, if they want to get into the business of information morality, then how about they use a tiny proportion of their massive cash pile to help get this issue resolved in the courts, once and for all?

The WMF are simply not that interested, because they have always been rather disinterested passengers in this whole crusade against the Mail, which is being driven wholly by the lying scum that makes up their volunteer community. Even the PR opportunities that have dropped in their lap as a result, were tainted with having to explain (or rather dodge) what actually went down. They want no part of a truthful presentation of what happened, while the Wikipedians who did it carry on actively lying, all on the WMF's servers.

Not to mention this is all rather besides the point. The Mail could be the biggest thieves going, their entire business model could be one of explicit theft, and yet that would tell us nothing about whether their content is reliable, behind a rather simplistic moral case. That would be very bizarre if the suggestion is they are stealing from people who the Wikipedians consider reliable. Their copy may be stolen, but it would be reliable, no? Thus, it is obviously the case the Wikipedians are not remotely concerned with the Mail's relability.

Guy Macon illustrated the problem quite well. He has has said somehere that Wikipedia should not use reliable sources of it is clear they are simply reusing a Mail exclusive, i.e. where they have just changed a word or two (he didn't seem to realise this would be an example of the same "theft" he accuses them of doing, putting aside the issue of Fair Dealing). He went on to argue however, that if the reliable source changes the wording sufficiently to not be a copyright violation, then Wikipedia can and should use it.

How does that work? The mere fact that Mail originated copy is just reworded, to morons like Macon, who clearly has absolutely not one clue about how the media works, is somehow a reassurance to them it has also been fact checked. Normal people can see this is categorically not the case. This is not now the media works. All of this was covered in the original RfC, but was seemingly completely ignored by its incompetent (corrupt?) closers. They never did release the record of their deliberations......

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Thu Dec 27, 2018 6:21 pm

What an absolute moron.
This practice raises issues about whether the Daily Mail meets WP:COPYVIOEL. While the site may be complying with the law, stealing the work of other journalists is highly unethical. It also means that the DM is frequently not engaging in collecting news itself, and is at best a tertiary source. Nick-D (talk) 04:36, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
I cannot believe these people are even allowed access to a computer.

The closers of this RfC will avoid this sort of issue like the plague, this utter moron's total bullshit will be added to the pile of supports, the magic total Guy Macon is already tugging his todger over.....
Out of 94 !votes so far in the current RfC, 26 !voted to overturn the ban, 68 !voted to uphold the ban. and 1 !voted to retain the ban for everying in the past but to overturn it going forward.
......
--Guy Macon (talk) 21:22, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
Not a vote, yeah? A sage review of everyone's views for levels of clue and evidence, all being weighted to produce a determination of consensus, or lack therefore?

Yeeahright.

Fuck off with this shit.

What kind of sad fuck spends Christmas Day totalising this shit anyway? That just screams level headed and unbiased, right? His utter desperation could not be more clear. The time has come to ask, where did the Daily Mail touch you Guy? Show us on the doll......

Nick D's vote and Macon's bloodlust is perfectly illustrative of the sort of absolute fuckwit that supports this ban, but you will never know it. There are doubtless many semi-intelligent Wikipedians who see this sort of garbage vote and frothing POV push for what it is, but they're keeping their mouths shut, because they've got absolutely no problem with the ban being upheld with the help of every last moron and screecher they can find.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Dec 28, 2018 1:14 am

Guy Macon did some last minute begging and got a few more morons to comment......
No -- the bottom line is that we don't need the Daily Mail, and there are enough obvious problems that we lose more than we gain if we go back to using it. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
This was said just a few lines below Geo Swan's comment, the gist of which was, if we don't need the Mail, why is it still being used as a reference all over Wikipedia? He acknowledges the dirty secret these idiots don't want to - people aren't replacing it because they are not finding any issues with the source, and/or they are failing in the task that pieces of shit like John claimed would be really easy (finding a better source for Mail derived information that Wikipedia doesn't want deleted for lack of sourcing).

This whole thing has been one big scam, an exercise in virtue signalling and PR stuntery. It has never been about the encyclopedia or readers of it. Wikipedia is almost certainly still the world's biggest provider of incoming links to the Daily Mail's website.
No'. We don't need Daily Mail or any other tabloid as a source. (I mean tabloid in the sense of tabloid journalism, not the tabloid (newspaper format) size factor).  — SMcCandlish  19:34, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia's own article, of course, doesn't even call the Mail a tabloid in the tabloid journalism sense. Why? Because it cannot reliably source such obvious bollocks. It does call it a tabloid, meaning the format, without making it clear in the text this is the intended meaning of the word. Obviously the goal there is to mislead at least some of the visitors to that article. Dumb Americans no doubt.
No - articles still frequently show bias or fabrication although I believe that it is marginally better than a year ago. Many other reliable sources are available, in my opinion the Daily Mail does not qualify as one. Shritwod (talk) 20:22, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
Yet another person who wrongly believes reliable sources on Wikipedia have to be unbiased. No evidence provided for the claim it frequently contains fabrication either, nor indeed any attempt to quantify "frequently" so that others might have the first clue what this gimp does consider a reliable source.
Per WP:IAR we can still include an occasional ref to the occasional well-written and truthful story. If these start becoming more common, we can revist again in a few years. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:47, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
Don't make me laugh.

These people are total idiots.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Dec 28, 2018 1:38 pm

No less than three editors have now claimed that the ban is not a problem for Wikipedia because they still have the ultimate backstop of W:IAR if there is ever anything in the paper they really need to use.

It cannot be stressed enough, this is absolute bullshit. Correct application of IAR does not generate controversy, the benefit to Wikipedia has to be clear, to the point of being obvious and unquestionable. You should not even really notice when it is being done, if done correctly, if you weren't directly involved. That is the whole fucking point of the rule. There is absolutely no situation where use of the Mail as a source, for third party information, is not going to generate controversy. That is blindingly clear from this process.

There is also the basic logical failure at work here. If the only place you can find information you want to use is in the Mail, and if that is deemed to be not reliable as a general presumption, then there is NO WAY you can prove to anyone else the specific material you want to use from it, is not a fabrication. If you had a reliable source that proves it is not a fabrication, then you would use that source instead. This idea they might apply IAR to get around this paradox, implies they are going to use questionable methods to reassure themselves the material in question is not fabricated. If not guesswork or blind hope, then something else that looks very much like it.

Whatever they say or do in such a situation, would immediately invalidate the reason for the ban, because it will invariably be the sort of leap of faith or assumption that can also be applied to the other stuff they seem quite happy to currently assume as a general rule, must be fabricated (or "stolen") for no other reason than it is from the Mail. No more specific reason than that. That is what a general presumption of unreliability is all about - you need a specific, concrete, reason, to ever ignore it. This is how some of them try to argue it is not a comprehensive ban, while failing to show it ever works. These reasons to ignore it simply cannot exist, without providing a better source in the process, thereby removing the need to use the Mail.

This is why the idiot Macon has already admitted he thinks Wikipedia needs to assume that whereas the horrible Mail has fabrication and dishonesty supposedly baked into its very fabric, it's journalists and contributors are not inherently dishonest. I.e., if they are not on record as saying a specific story was changed by the Mail's editor, it can be assumed to be the honest words of that reliable writer, useable as a source. Idiotic. Similarly for his idea that the number of words changed when another paper reuses a Mail story, is a reliable indicator of whether they have independently fact checked it. Ignorant prat.

If you seriously think IAR will work to mitigate the idiocy of this ban, find an actual example where it has been tried, and worked, already. Or as a second best, offer a hypothetical that others can test. If you can't, well, it has to be assumed you are talking out of your ass.

This will be another thing about this whole farce, the entire idiocy of the 'No' side, which will absolutely be completely ignored by whoever closes it in favour of 'No'. Like it never even formed part of their case.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Dec 29, 2018 6:39 pm

If they don't find anyone with the guts to try and avoid the mistakes of the previous closure, then I have the perfect person for the job......

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... 7776#p7776

Go on, let her do it. Please let her do it.

:lol: :twisted:

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by sashi » Sun Dec 30, 2018 3:17 pm

Ha. I've been "forced" into avoiding voting for or against the Daily Mail. It seems to me more appropriate not to participate in that farce, if they're going to delete any reference to the mainspace representation of the ban, their school paper's representation of the ban, and parenthetically to their dislike of critical perspective in mainspace (refers to essay that opens this very thread).

It's best I stay out of politics discussions about reliable sources, I guess. I don't want to annoy anyone, after all. :D

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:44 pm

An interesting comment.....
we are not singling out a journalist, but the news organ they work for. An individual journalist may well be fine, but his work goes through a process before publishing, it is that process that is under doubt. As to a few debatable incidents, people have linked here to them actually being found guilty in the courts, that is not debatable.Slatersteven (talk) 15:41, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
If you are only considering the process and not the people, why was the fact that Peter Hitchins writes for the Daily Mail ever even mentioned during the process of banning him from Wikipedia? It was used as a smear by association, and not one Wikipedia Administrator did anything about it (and it would have been quite difficult to do, since the person who did it was the all-powerful Administrator Guy Chapman, a prominent participant in this so called debate).

As for being found guilty in the courts, what is debatable is whether you are properly comparing these incidents with what happens at the so called reliable sources, either in frequency or seriousness. The foot dragging on banning The Sun, who were involved in not but two major prosecutions as a result of their disreputable practices, firmly established as matters of process, each being a level of scandal far beyond anything that has ever happened at the Mail, is noted.

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:49 pm

Spot the retard who clearly has no idea just how much of the Mail's exclusive content, particularly its BLP material, is quickly and eagerly reused (with attribution, of course) by so called reliable sources.......
Anything reported only by the Daily Fail should be treated with the very greatest caution, and absolutely avoided in BLP articles. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:19, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
How are the closers supposed to interpret this idiot's comment? Is such material to be assumed to be reliable, unreliable, or examined to see how much of the wording was changed (per Guy Macon's earlier retarded comment)

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Re: The Daily Mail ban

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:53 pm

Another retard.
If something matters, some other more reliable publication will state it. - Sitush (talk) 19:54, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
They often do state it, usually alongside the words "According to the Mail". Is that reliable, unreliable, or are you only just learning this is how the media works? I'd love to give you more time to collect your thougths, but you, and all these other fuckwits, have had nearly a month to figure this all out. Guy Macon is eager for closure (and all these late arrivals, all spouting the same ill-informed garbage, has all the hallmarks of him having gone on a mission to round up some last minute support).

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