A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

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Jake Is A Sellout
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A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

Post by Jake Is A Sellout » Sun Jun 27, 2021 9:32 am

As everyone knows, the Daily Mail is the UK's most widely read and most right wing mass market newspaper. It is an important window into the mood of the public and the politicians that govern us, since we currently have a right wing government with an unassailable Parliamentary majority, and a left wing Opposition that, even after a leadership change, continues to stumble from one historic defeat to another.

An encyclopedia that ignores the Mail therefore, for events of this time period, is an encyclopedia that won't be giving an accurate or even honest picture of British history.

Here is a Guardian opinion piece that seeks to criticise a recent Mail story regarding new vaccine effectiveness data.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver ... vaccinated

It takes issue with the Mail headline......
......and concludes with this pithy comment:
Coverage and effectiveness are important numbers for assessing vaccination programmes. It is better to look at cool analysis by analysts, rather than hot takes on social and other media.
The coward obviously didn't feel brave enough to say the Mail specifically, even though he started the piece talking about that headline, and didn't mention any other "media".

So what's the deal here? Well, we have a Guardian opinion writer trying to deceive people into thinking the Mail doesn't write stories which contain the sober analysis of experts and doesn't get into details like vaccine coverage and effectiveness. Or when they do, they misrepresent them.

Sound familiar? It reads exactly like the anti-Mail propaganda spouted by Wikipedia editors. Which is unsurprising, because the Guardian is their favourite newspaper. It being the only left wing newspaper in Brtiain, at least the only one that doesn't have (too many) media scandals in its history.

Even so, even though Piers Morgan was a past editor of the largest left wing tabloid, The Mirror, until he ran a fake front page story falsely accusing the Army of war crimes, that's still not enough for the Wikipedia community to declare the Mirror to be as bad as if not worse than the Mail. Still think this ban isn't about politics?

But sadly for the Wikipedia editors, as is all too common when it comes to their views of the Mail, reality doesn't match their bullshit. A read of the Mail article reveals it has lots of expert opinion, and does talk about what they think about vaccine effectiveness and coverage.

Because that was, after all, the WHOLE FUCKING POINT of the headline. This was a story written in advance of the Prime Minister having to decide whether to delay the lifting of further restrictions. Which he did indeed, delay. Why? As the report shows, it was because this Delta variant has changed the maths regarding vaccine effectiveness.

It is clear that uppermost in his mind, as reflected by the experts, that even if the vaccine is still somewhat effective, such is the transmissability of this new variant, and given the county isn't completely vaccinated yet, letting it run wild would result in higher deaths.

Not just in those yet to be vaccinated, but deaths of fully vaccinated people. Because, as the report makes clear, in a no shit Sherlock kind of way, the vaccines aren't one hundred percent effective. Contrary to the Guardian's arrogant presumptions, it doesn't need to explain that this means old people are still at highest risk of death, because that is already widely known.

As the opinions in the Mail article also show, this is still not an easy decision. There is a case to be made that says the costs and social harms of not unlocking, outweigh the potential deaths.

This is what irks the left. The Guardian reading class. As the Mail article makes clear, it is their habit, from the comfort of their zoom calls, in their nice houses, with their comfortable work at home full salary, to not consider those people. To blithely assume they can endure such things forever.

The Mail, as you would, expect, gives the full picture.

The Mail, as you would expect, shows that governing is hard. But it is easier when you have the public on your side. But having the majority support you, is still no excuse for screwing over the minority. If the relative handful of deaths of fully vaccinated people is cause to pause further unlocking, and the public supports this, then you need to compensate those business being worst affected.

Wikipedia editors do not want the world to know these things. They don't want the right wing perspective. It presumably pisses them off no end, that the contents of this Mail article, which is by no means unusual, this is a typical Mail article, do not conform their idiotic notions that Brtiain is currently ruled by a lying populist idiotic shitbag, who has the right wing press in his back pocket.

Johnson is not the British Trump. The Mail is not Fox News.

Farage was the British Trump. We don't have Fox News, since they found our Don't Be Lying Bastard laws a little too restrictive (as would Wikipedia, if it were to be reclassified as a media entity). Because of that, and because Britain has a better democracy and a better educated public, and inspite of the American gift to the world of Facebook et al, we were able to deal with our Trump quite effectively.

The left wing Wikipedia editors don't want the world to know these things. It is unacceptable to them that the right wing should be perceived as competent and fit to govern. In contrast to their mythology that "reality has a left wing bias", these days, in functioning democracies at least, reality has a much closer fit to the politics of the day, than left wing fantasies of their own competence.

Had the left won the last election here, which in hindsight really was a ridiculous idea, we would still be in the EU, and so our vaccine rollout would have been just as shit as theirs has been, largely due to the fact the EU is a bloated, undemocratic, power mad bureaucratic clusterfuck.

Which is one of the many reasons Britain voted for Brexit. Years ago now, David Cameron went to Brussels asking for meagre reforms to the EU's glorious vision of "Ever Closer Union" because it was not helping him keep his party together. He asked for stuff that wasn't even close to retaining our independence in matters like medicine approvals, and the right to have first dibs on vaccines produced in British laboratories using British expertise. They told him to get fucked. Brexit was the inevitable consequence. To their great surprise. Arrogance and delusion being a trait of the left.

The left wing Wikipedia editors only want the world to hear from people like this Guardian expert, even though, to my mind, he can't be all that much of an expert......
Consider the hypothetical world where absolutely everyone had received a less than perfect vaccine. Although the death rate would be low, everyone who died would have been fully vaccinated
The less than perfect vaccine he is talking about here, is still effective enough in preventing transmission, to ensure that once everyone has been immunised, you have herd immunity.

As of right now, it appears the greatest threat to the traditional right wing base, if recent individual results are to be believed, is the long awaited emergence of the centre party as a political force. And as the saying goes, we will believe it when we see it. Because this would be about the fifth time it has been predicted, only to fall at the alter of the British public realising that a vote for a third party in what is effectively a two party system, is a wasted vote.

The left wants to badly control the narrative on Wikipedia these days however, because this time at least, they can see the danger. They can see that their party is doing so badly, and has seemingly no answers at all, that they really are in danger of becoming the third party. They only won power last time after decades of being the second party, after Tony Blair effectively rebranded them as centrist. There is no such thing in the works now. Labour want to remain the party of grievance and government knows best, and seem content to go down with that ship, to join the Whiggs and the Liberals.

And what better way to control the narrative, than cancel the opposition? Just switch off their mike entirely.

I would be fine with it, if the Wikishits were being honest about their motives. The world has space for a leftist world view encyclopedia. Right wingers are nothing if not lovers of a person's freedom to choose where they get their information. The Mail has to compete on a commercial basis, and it even has to complete with a state funded news provider, which is OK, because the price for state funding is legally ensured neutrality. But they're not. They want people to believe that Mail reports like this, are unreliable. They want people to believe they might be false.

As Guy Macon has inadvertently discovered, because he really is that fucking stupid, this report, like millions before it, is accurate. It is the editorial slant, that is disliked. If it had contained fabricated quotes, if it does contain incorrect figures and claims, we would have heard by now. In large part because the Wikipedia editors would be trumpeting it from the rooftops.

As usual, all they have is criticism of a headline. And dishonest criticism at that.

But welcome to your new reality. The Guardian is a reliable source. The Mail is not. And the country is only governed by an historically strong right wing government, because the public are stupid morons and the Mail makes a profit from lying to them all day every day.

Only the Guardian and their Wikipedia editor fanboys, can see it.

They actually believe this shit. Read the Guardian comments sections once in a while, they really do believe this utter garbage.

Never in a million years, to these fucking people, could it be the case that it is actually the obvious lies and general asshattery of left wing politics, that could be the cause of their eternal state of powerlessness.

In a very real sense, control over Wikipedia is their only real power.

Can you imagine anything more depressing? Certainly to people who aspire to control every aspect of everyone's life.

Thatcher killed the unions, Johnson can kill Wikipedia. The difference being, the unions were actually causing real harm to the country. The evidence that anyone actually cares what these dipshit Wikipedia editors do, is thin to say the least.

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Re: A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Jun 28, 2021 3:25 am

Jake Is A Sellout wrote:
Sun Jun 27, 2021 9:32 am
Thatcher killed the unions, Johnson can kill Wikipedia.
Won't happen. Sorry. Even Tories use the thing.

Oh btw, about the Guardian:
As was noted above, Wales tried to get Seth Finkelstein fired from The Guardian, and apparently succeeded. After Finkelstein's departure, The Guardian became remarkably pro-Wikipedia in its editorial coverage.

And the final reward came to Wales in January 2016, as the Guardian Media Group put him on their Board of Directors. When the February 2017 story about Wikipedia deciding that the Daily Mail was an "untrustworthy source", a comment was posted below the article:

"The irony of the Grauniad getting on its high horse about 'media standards' while strangely neglecting to mention that Jimmy Wales. the Labour-supporting chief of Wiki, is also a board member of Guardian Media Group is just too delicious for words. "

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Re: A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

Post by Kumioko » Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:03 am

It's only a matter of time until the weaponizing of the ban process on wikipedia is covered in the news. Wikipedia has so far been able to bully reporters into not doing much in depth criticism, but I think that time is coming.
#BbbGate

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Re: A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Jun 28, 2021 9:11 pm

Kumioko wrote:
Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:03 am
Wikipedia has so far been able to bully reporters into not doing much in depth criticism, but I think that time is coming.
I figured the Qworty mess would have finally broken things open. I was wrong. Even at the height of Qworty, the Jimbo-pologists were still out in force.

Remember this last year? In both cases, megabytes of ranting was produced but not much "reform" actually happened. Some questionable stuff was deleted--big deal, not much notice was paid.

The Wiki-Fools spent SIX YEARS trying to check every one of Young's edits. Ask a journalist today about Qworty and I expect you will get a blank stare. I suspect the Scots Wikipedia will never be fully repaired.

20 years of media-suckage is not easy to undo.

As I keep telling you: journalists give wikipedia the benefit of the doubt, because all of them use it to check facts routinely. The goose lays lots of rotten eggs but the blind fools eat those eggs, and fear to say anything about the smell or the foul taste.

You know there's a real problem when the most honest coverage comes from CRACKED magazine
https://www.cracked.com/article_29988_4 ... adars.html

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Re: A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

Post by Kumioko » Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:23 pm

I agree, the Scottish wikipedia fiasco is going to probably be a permenant problem unless they wipe his edits and start over.

I think part of the problem with a lot of the controversies is they are to much inside baseball. To someone familiar they're a big deal, but to outsiders it doesn't make sense. Like Frammageddon as an example.
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Re: A perfect example of why Wikipedia editors want to keep the Daily Mail out of Wikipedia

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:11 pm

Kumioko wrote:
Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:23 pm
I agree, the Scottish wikipedia fiasco is going to probably be a permenant problem unless they wipe his edits and start over.
That will never happen. AmaryllisGardener was unquestionably operating socks, and some other "editorthings" on sco.wp were also clearly incompetent.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request ... doing_this

Look at the list of top editors. What the HELL are people like Pathoschild, LadyofShalott, J.delanoy and DerHexer doing in there? I guarantee they are Americans or Canadians and are NOT qualified in Scots. And who in the bloody hell made Diego Grez, a Chilean/American, an administrator? He was banned on en.wp anyway.....

All lesser language wikis are virtually identical (those that aren't totally dead anyway). Qualified people who speak the language are usually there, but so are the ADHD gold-star-chasers and obsessed maniacs. No one stops them--until they trash something like this. Action is taken only when embarrassing media reports appear.

Meanwhile, Gerard has walked back on his Daily Mail chasing, and is now trying to purge all references to the Iranian government "pseudo news stuff" outlet Press TV. Talk about an obsessed maniac. He's still got a shit-ton of other "deprecated sources" to remove. Note that they didn't get serious about this until two years ago. Before that, hey, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
20:43, 30 June 2021 diff hist −222‎ Template:2009-2010 flu pandemic table ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:13, 30 June 2021 diff hist −3,407‎ Timeline of the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests (May–December 2011) ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:12, 30 June 2021 diff hist −122‎ Template:Infobox 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) - and recent RFC on WP:RSN that PressTV is particularly not usable for this topic current
19:12, 30 June 2021 diff hist −681‎ Template:Infobox 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests/refs ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) - and recent RFC on WP:RSN that PressTV is particularly not usable for this topic current
19:09, 30 June 2021 diff hist −224‎ Shapour Marhaba ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:09, 30 June 2021 diff hist −229‎ Sasha Knezev ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:09, 30 June 2021 diff hist −260‎ Mehdi Sahabi ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:08, 30 June 2021 diff hist −67‎ MV Mariam ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:07, 30 June 2021 diff hist −126‎ 2015 World Archery Championships – Men's Team Compound ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:07, 30 June 2021 diff hist −349‎ 2009 Mir-Hossein Mousavi presidential campaign ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:07, 30 June 2021 diff hist −160‎ Bahman Jalali ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:06, 30 June 2021 diff hist −951‎ Iranian railway industry ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:06, 30 June 2021 diff hist −236‎ Cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:06, 30 June 2021 diff hist −156‎ Ataollah Salehi ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:06, 30 June 2021 diff hist −471‎ 2017 Mostafa Mir-Salim presidential campaign ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:06, 30 June 2021 diff hist −1,124‎ Soumar (missile) ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:05, 30 June 2021 diff hist −231‎ 2010 Guinean presidential election ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:05, 30 June 2021 diff hist −482‎ 2010 Jiangxi derailment ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:04, 30 June 2021 diff hist −10‎ Vyacheslav Danilenko ‎ stray dep
19:03, 30 June 2021 diff hist −220‎ Mohammad Reza Safdarian ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:03, 30 June 2021 diff hist −639‎ Acid attacks on women in Isfahan ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:02, 30 June 2021 diff hist −573‎ Abdolhamid Rigi ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:02, 30 June 2021 diff hist −253‎ Pardis Technology Park ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:02, 30 June 2021 diff hist −155‎ Vyacheslav Danilenko ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
19:02, 30 June 2021 diff hist −332‎ Battle of Mogadishu (2008) ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:01, 30 June 2021 diff hist −144‎ S. P. Thamilselvan ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:01, 30 June 2021 diff hist −14‎ Intellectual property in Iran ‎ stray dep
19:01, 30 June 2021 diff hist −466‎ Jesús Manuel Lara Rodríguez ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:00, 30 June 2021 diff hist −1,102‎ Central Insurance of Iran ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
19:00, 30 June 2021 diff hist −706‎ Intellectual property in Iran ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
18:59, 30 June 2021 diff hist −1,494‎ Agriculture in Iran ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
18:57, 30 June 2021 diff hist −310‎ Mir-Mahna ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
18:57, 30 June 2021 diff hist −384‎ Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
18:57, 30 June 2021 diff hist −319‎ Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
18:57, 30 June 2021 diff hist −825‎ Iran at the 2016 Summer Olympics ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
18:56, 30 June 2021 diff hist −536‎ Second inauguration of Hassan Rouhani ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
18:56, 30 June 2021 diff hist −250‎ Destruction of Shia mosques during the 2011 Bahraini uprising ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
18:55, 30 June 2021 diff hist −282‎ MV Blue Star ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
18:55, 30 June 2021 diff hist −258‎ 2009 Pakistan Army Mil Mi-17 crash ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
18:55, 30 June 2021 diff hist −301‎ Táchira helicopter crash ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
18:55, 30 June 2021 diff hist −2,047‎ Terrorist incidents in Iraq in 2014 ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
16:14, 29 June 2021 diff hist −9‎ Fahimeh Rastkar ‎
16:14, 29 June 2021 diff hist −759‎ Soodabeh Davaran ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
16:14, 29 June 2021 diff hist −425‎ Fahimeh Rastkar ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
16:13, 29 June 2021 diff hist −271‎ UFO sightings in Iran ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP), rm search link current
16:13, 29 June 2021 diff hist −983‎ The Least Worst Place ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
16:12, 29 June 2021 diff hist −318‎ 2014 Karlanyurt clash ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
15:42, 29 June 2021 diff hist −418‎ Denis Berezovsky ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP)
15:42, 29 June 2021 diff hist −198‎ Timeline of the Yemeni Crisis (2011–present) ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current
15:42, 29 June 2021 diff hist −348‎ Ali Tayebnia ‎ rm deprecated source Press TV (per WP:RSP) current

Mr. Gerard, you incompetent potato, FUCK YOU, sir.

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