Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 220

Survey

• Support prohibition Looking through the archives and talkpages across WP reveals a clear consensus not to use it at all. Many, many editors (and Jimmy Wales) have said over the years that the Mail is not a relaible source in any area. A list of reasons why would be enormous, it doesn't need reiterating, the paper is trash, pure and simple. There may be rare exceptions where a reference may be useful, perhaps when a Mail story is itself the subject – cases could be presented here for discussion. There is little chance anything of encyclopedic value would be lost from such a move, and everything to be gained, not least an end to continual Mail-related arguments. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 13:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no justification for the blanket banning of a mass-circulation newspaper as a source. There will be cases where it is a suitable rs source. The problem with the "Mail-related arguments" mentioned, if the latest example here is typical, is just with editors not knowing what appropriate sources to use. Should the Daily Mail be used to support a claim related to astronomy? Well duh, obviously not! The proposer seems to have a longterm pov agenda here, in an earlier comment he actually compared the Daily Mail to Völkischer Beobachter and has been busy compiling . Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  We obviously shouldn't use it for anything science related, it is de facto prohibited from BLPs and BLP-related articles, and politics would seem out of bounds given their continual lies and misrepresentation in this area. Even their photography can't be relied upon (sorry, Martin). In what scenario would the Mail be an irreplaceable source? They regularly publish sexualized photos of children. A coroner blamed them in the death of a transexual they had hounded. How on earth is dailymail.co.uk (current front-page headline: "Patrick Swayze was a 'flirt' and Ariana Grande hung out with 'snobby entitled rich girls': Former classmates of A-listers reveal what they were REALLY like at school - but who were the meanest?") a suitable source for an encyclopedia? --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 16:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Is anyone proposing to use those articles for Wikipedia citations and article content? Making over-the-top hypotheticals and comparisons and very dubious allegations are not convincing. 99.999% of the content on the Daily Mail that could be in some way be Wikipedia notable will also be source-able in more appropriate sources, so I do not see a problem that needs to be addressed in this way. The problem is editors not using appropriate sources. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• The Mail should be on the citation blacklist. There's no area of news where it is actually reliable. It can be relied on to accurately report celebrity gossip, but in that case the gossip itself is frequently false and the Mail doesn't check it. Their coverage of medical, science and political topics is a byword for deliberate inaccuracy. It is pretty close to a fake news source in some areas. Also: this: . Guy (Help!) 16:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  That link is absolutely hilarious.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:56, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Hipsters with access to a guitar, freshly-bought artisan-brown T-shirts, an A3 color laser printer, and a slightly lighter brown blank wall make formidable satirists (or at least they seem to think they do). I suggest we derail their brown revolution by providing a suitable framed poster to stick on that blank wall. Something hipster ironic - like a reprinted wood-cut on rice-paper Bolshevik propaganda poster perhaps? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Very funny link, Guy! DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:19, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, a gem. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  A Grammy worthy example of songwriting if I've ever seen one. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 06:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Maybe not a Grammy (it's weak musically) but certainly worthy of a Tubey. I say a 72-to-1 thumbs-up ratio with 2.2 million views constitutes a consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  Hilarious. And I notice that Tiptoethrutheminefield conspicuously says nothing about the actual content. --Calton | Talk 11:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  There is nothing to say about the actual content because two smug hipsters with a guitar and freshly-bought artisan-brown T-shirts do not a RS make. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

  Who said it was a reliable source? Also, that's only one hipster and some clever editing. And it's not smugness, but dry humor. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:07, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition As others have said it is a byword for the worst kinds of yellow journalism, it is (in effect) a fake news organ. Just because a lot of people buy it (or even by it) does not mean it is a reliable source for anything other then it's own views.Slatersteven (talk) 16:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Only very limited circumstances. I've defended the use of the Mail in the past for uncontroversial stuff like sport news, but actually the paper has got much worse and I can't think of many circumstances when it would be the best source or even acceptable. Definitely never for international news or science. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Seems to me that if we restrict it's use to anything uncontroversial we are (in effect) prohibiting it anyway.Slatersteven (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition It's just a mouthpiece for Paul Dacre & I remove it on sight. JRPG (talk) 17:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition unless directly relevant to the article - Anything found in the Daily Mail which can't be found in a more reliable, trustworthy source probably shouldn't be in Wikipedia at all. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:59, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition (within reason) if it can't be found anywhere else reliable, then it probably isn't reliable anyway.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I find the Mail to be just as ok as other large outlet news/trendycr@p places, and anyway there are bigger outlets (read: Wired, TTAC) to fry than Mail.L3X1 (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose prohibition, but there are very few circumstances in which we should rely on tabloid journalism. Exceptions include when BLP subjects have a byline in one of those newspapers, so long as they're not disparaging third parties. I can't see a reason to single out the Daily Mail; there are others just as bad and worse. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:43, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  I agree. We should put it on the reference revert list (so good-faith additions of refs are reverted and can be discussed individually) but not blacklist it, and we should strongly consider doing the same for other tabloids, especially the Express and the Sun. Guy (Help!) 23:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, I'd support that. I've come across a few BLPs at FAC that rely on these tabloids, and the nominators get upset when asked to remove them, so a broader solution would help. It would also be good to add something more detailed to WP:BLPSOURCES. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  @JzG: where is this reference revert list, please? DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• e/c Comment I am totally fed up with seeing this subject come up. Many, many readers are not aware of the disdain with which the Mail is viewed by some editors and then when they try to use it as a source, they are treated as if they are stupid or deliberately trying to get around PAG's. I know this from personal experience when in the distant past I tried to use the Daily Mail as a source - a sharp learning curve ensued. I agree with comments that if it is not in other newspapers, then it should probably not be in Wikipedia at all. However, I also agree with SlimVirgin above that there are others just as bad, and worse. This means we need to be looking at a number of papers. On occasions, I have been editing and used a website source. However, when trying to save the article, Wikipedia automatically rejects it because it has been blacklisted. Can we not set up a similar system for those newspapers we consider to be unreliable sources? DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Follow up: For those who wish to stop short of blacklisting, maybe we could flash up a warning message that the source is widely considered to be unreliable and the saving editor should reconsider its inclusion and use other sources instead. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:35, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  The fact that there may be others as bad does not justify using the Mail. And my proposal, with which I think SV agrees, is to use the citation revert list, as we do for predatory journals. Guy (Help!) 01:06, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  I think DrChrissy has a good idea. A warning message whenever anyone puts 'dailymail.co.uk' or 'The Daily Mail' between a pair of <ref> tags would be a great idea. I get uneasy about fully blacklisting any source (it's the sort of thing that adds fuel to the fire of every editor who whines about WP being censored), and would rather see a more educational than legalistic approach taken.

  I also agree that there are many other sources just as bad, and possibly even worse. I think getting something going that would create a list of these sources and generate a message when folks try to use them is the way to go. Hell, I'm a coder myself, and I'd be happy to work on it. I don't think it's a big project, but I'm not sure where to get started with something like this, beyond maybe taking it to the village pump or the main page talk to get enough editors behind it to impress the WMF or the en.wp staff. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 06:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  An edit filter could do that. Guy (Help!) 17:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  It honestly never occurred to me that we have edit filters. Sometimes I like to eat glue. Ooh! SHINY!!! <wanders off> MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition I thought it was considered unreliable before I saw this RfC. The worst kind of tabloid spam journalism. Laurdecl ^talk 10:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Editors are supposed to always use judgment when choosing sources. Usually the broadsheets are better than the tabloids but there are circumstances when tabloids provide better coverage such as sports and crime. And if we exclude the Mail, there are a lot of other publications of lower quality that would still be considered reliable. TFD (talk) 12:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Kill it. Kill it with fire. Under NO circumstances should the Daily Mail be used for anything, ever. They have proven themselves to be willing to make up fake quotes and to create doctored pictures, and nothing they say or do is to be trusted. Even in the cases that some of the editors in this discussion believe to be OK (sports scores, for example), if it really happened then the Daily Mail won't be the only source and if the Daily Mail is the only source, it probably didn't happen. Relevant links: --Guy Macon (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support with reasonable exceptions It should never ever be used for any support for factual content, but there are cases where the DM itself is part of the story, so referencing relevant articles by the DM that are a part of that story is reasonable. And there may be appropriate editorial content where we would attribute those opinions to the author that can be included. Outright blacklisting is probably not appropriate but its use absolutely must be kept away from any type of factual claims. --MASEM (t) 20:53, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition with the usual reasonable exceptions as outlined or mentioned by Masem, NorthBySouthBaranof (these would be rare: i.e., IAR exceptions). Neutrality^talk 23:14, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition though noting that common sense also applies.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment By coincidence, I have just noted a recent edit to the Cheetah article used the Daily Mail as a source for the maximum speed of cheetahs. I tagged this with "Better source needed" and an editor replaced this with the scientific sources. However, the problem here is that we have gone from a secondary source to a primary source. Many editors object to this, but new or inexperienced editors will see this as good editing until they understand this secondary source is considered non-RS. I am not for one second suggesting the Daily Mail should be allowed for this, but this is a matter of educating editors or simply prohibiting those sources considered non-RS. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:30, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• support this RfC is kind of beating a dead horse as the community has rejected this source pretty much every time it comes here. so much time has been wasted explaining people not to use this. It has no place in WP where our mission it to summarize accepted knowledge. so yes kill it with fire Jytdog (talk) 02:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support with reasonable exceptions per Masem. For news items if it isn't covered in a broadsheet newspaper then it probably isn't significant anyway, but for references to specific opinions or perspectives it may be useful. ----Snowded ^TALK 03:10, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• support It is unnecessary to allow for the unlikely scenario that the Daily Mail would both a trustworthy and the only available source. That other tabloids exist that are just as bad doesn't mean we should keep the Daily Mail: It means we should blacklist those too. Mduvekot (talk) 04:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Bashing the Mail is fun, and it doesn't look as if anyone disagrees much that it is best avoided, but that there will possibly be rare occasions when it will be a good source, given the context (eg, as noted, something about the paper itself). But that's the point: identifying appropriate sources is all about context, and there are plenty of rubbish websites out there that should rarely or never be used, and plenty of occasions when even broadsheet reporting isn't worth much for an encyclopedia. And even if we accept the idea of effectively banning certain sources – which is fraught with problems itself – this is being done back to front by singling out one newspaper for blacklisting, rather than establishing the principle of a blacklist and then working out what to include in it. I don't see how existing general principles don't broadly deal with the problem – and are there really endless cases of people insisting on using it, such that we need this draconian intervention, aimed at this one paper? N-HH talk/edits 11:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  Unfortunately existing general principles don't deal with the problem. Questioning the use of DM regularly comes up; people argue it's not a tabloid, or refer to its status as the biggest online news service, etc. I can't tell you how much bullshit I've had to remove from articles, especially after searching for dailymail.co.uk incategory:"Living people", John, who has done sterling work in this area, could elaborate. Ideally, yes, each edit should be examined in context, and banning a source outright is something of a blunt instrument -- but in this case I think the benefits of something like an edit-filter will heavily outweigh the negatives, there are simply too many articles to keep an eye on (~800,000 BLPs!). I would support a filter for other unreliable sources too, and I agree that it is a somewhat back-to-front process, but I really think the DM is a special case. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 21:56, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  What are you suggesting when you talk about an edit filter. Does this prevent the entire edit, or does it just filter out the source? By the way, if this goes ahead (and I think it should) there are plenty of other sources that should be considered - the Daily Mail is just a precedent. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:39, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  I don't really know which options are available or appropriate, I guess a separate discussion regarding this will be necessary pending the outcome of the RfC. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 23:04, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. The DM does occasionally get exclusive interviews with well-known people and gives direct quotes of what they say. It's hard to believe these stories and quotes would ever be fabricated or published without the express permission of the person concerned. So a full-on ban would deny this material. Just sayin' Martinevans123 (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  That would be a natural assumption, but this is yet another area in which their standards are pretty low, eg. "Daily Mail Accused of Fake Interview by Paul Pogba, French Soccer Player, May Sue" and "The Inquisitr, Daily Mail Admit Roger Moore Quotes Fake" or "Andrea Pirlo slams Daily Mail on Instagram for making up interview trolling Man United" --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 01:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Oh dear. That hardly inspires confidence. Maybe a price worth paying then. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:15, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Another example, from Daily Mail censured for fictional story about Amanda Knox verdict in The Guardian:

  "The Mail's website reported that Knox has lost her appeal against her conviction for murdering Meredith Kercher when, in fact, she had been successful. [...] These included quotes attributed to the prosecutors apparently reacting to the guilty verdict, and the description of the reaction in the courtroom to the news, stating that Knox 'sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears'. It further stated that the family of Meredith Kercher 'remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family'. The newspaper apologised for the mistake. It said that it was standard practice in such high-profile cases for two alternative stories (plus supporting quotes) to be prepared in advance"

  So we now know that it is standard practice for The Daily Mail to fabricate direct quotes. Add that to the many examples of photoshopped images and the conclusion is inescapable; we cannot trust anything written in The Daily Mail. --Guy Macon (talk)

• Support more or less as per the terms in the opening statement, that it still (very occasionally) be allowed when there is some sort of need for that content. I have no clear idea what that might be, other than maybe a few useful celebrity interview exclusive comments, or matters regarding lawsuits, or something like that. John Carter (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Request There has been talk here of a "blacklist" and a "reference revert list". Please could someone direct me to this/these. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  There is no such thing, another indication of flaws inherent in this RfC. I think "support" opinions for an non-existent thing can safely be dismissed - they are not based on Wikipedia guidelines but on personal animosity towards the source. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  I don't know about a "reference revert list," but Wikipedia:Spam blacklist is I think the blacklist being referred to. John Carter (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for this John. It appears that this blacklist only applies to URLs. I may be getting ahead of the subject here but I suspect what is needed is an easily accessible page which lists newspapers (perhaps also magazines) where consensus has been reached that they are generally considered unreliable and consensus should be sought (on here perhaps) if they are to be used. Perhaps this could be called Grey-listed popular press sources? DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  We have one for video games. --Izno (talk) 00:30, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for this. It is interesting to note that in the table of Unreliable Sources toward the bottom - one of the sources is Wikipedia itself! DrChrissy ^(talk) 01:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  I know that Wikipedia is an unreliable source because I looked it up on Wikipedia. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 03:21, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  There's also a (less detailed) list at Wikipedia:List of companies engaged in the self-publishing business, many of which give no indication in their books that said book has been self-published. On academic subjects, we also refer to Beall's list. The Daily Mail, would belong, if anywhere, in a totally new kind of list. It actually wouldn't be a bad idea to make a well-annotated list like for videogames, and list the various publishers that have come up here with a note to their consensus outcome and links to every discussion. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:29, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  We don't even have a list that says The Onion isn't a reliable source. That being said, if you look at the recent "fake news" meme you will find that it has been used to label things that are not actually fake news (a fake news site is one that knowingly spreads fabricated content), but rather unpopular editorial content combined with low quality sourcing. See the RfC at Talk:List of fake news websites#Request for Comment - Removal of Infowars from this list also see this: We need to strictly limit any such list to avoid it being used as a club to suppress unpopular opinions. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Infowars is identified by reliable independent sources as a fake news site, based on its tendency to publish things with absolutely no care as to whether they are objectively true or not. It's not our job to second-guess the sources which call it fake news, see WP:NOR. Guy (Help!) 12:18, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  '"You have yet to produce any quality sources, let alone a majority of reliable sources, which actually state that InfoWars intentionally publishes hoax stories. WP:SYNTH expressly forbids drawing conclusions based on an editor's own personal conclusions not actually stated by the sources." -- posted by User:A Quest For Knowledge on 12:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC) on Talk:List of fake news websites.

  CNN is also identified as fake news sources by a reliable independent source Seriously, please read this editorial and give careful consideration to the possibility that the "fake news" label is being used to try to silence opposing views. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

  Come on, did you even read those first three sources? The first one doesn't go anywhere near an accusation that CNN is fake news. The second one only accuses CNN of "stooping to the same level as fake news sites" on one specific story, and the third is merely reporting that Trump has accused CNN of being fake news. Anyway, as for InfoWars, there are grades of fake news. There are obviously the purest of fake news sites that publish deliberately false stories for either clicks, luls, or godknowswhat. Then you have things like InfoWars and NaturalNews, which no one can prove are deliberately dishonest, but whose writers are utterly paranoid and have no bullshit filters. Plenty of reliable sources will refer to them as "fake news" all the same, just as publishing false and defamatory statements with malicious disregard for the truth is legally considered the same as intentionally lying, at least in the US. We should clarify these things where possible, but you know as well as everyone else here that "fakenews" on Wikipedia is what reliable sources say is "fakenews". Someguy1221 (talk) 01:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support Because the current position is that its not reliable for much (except itself) and for those things it could be used for, better sources are available, and if the only source is the daily mail, its not worth covering. An easy-to-direct discussion where we can point people who ask 'Should I use the Daily Mail' with the answer 'no' would make everything a lot simpler. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - there are some things for which it's useful, despite all that's been said above. Occsaionally it accurately rakes muck that nobody else has turned over. If the proposer could be a little clearer about how we might demonstrate need to use it in those rare cases where the DM can be considered reliable, I might well change my mind. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Editors attempting to add DM as a ref (and any others deemed suitable for a "greylist") could be directed here, or if that runs the risk of swamping the RSN, a new board. Alternatively, any such edits could be flagged in a similar way to pending changes, needing the nod from a reviewer (if that's possible?) I'm afraid I don't know how the edit filters work, so am not sure exactly what options are available/feasible. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 17:31, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Noting that this has been discussed a few dozen times now. Neither the DM nor any other news source is absolutely reliable on articles concerning celebrities. IMO, Wikipedia would be best off declining to republish "celebrity gossip" in the first place. More to the point, the DM has not been shown to be unreliable in other matters, although its headlines may misstate the content of articles, this is also true of every single newspaper known to man. I suggest, in fact, that "headlines" not be allowed as a source for what an article states, and only be allowed to illustrate what the headline stated and cited as such. Collect (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  Agree about headlines, but the DM has been shown to be unreliable in other matters many, many times, far more than other publications. Remember the Amanda Knox guilty verdict? --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 16:29, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  Re: The oft-repeated claim that the DM is specifically evil, read for information about all major media and their use of press releases. In fact, moreover, other than in the area of celebrity gossip (where no paper should be trusted in the first place), the DM's record is akin to the record of The Guardian and other broadsheets. Collect (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  Sorry but that's utter bollocks.

  Press Complaints Commission records over a ten-year period: Successful complaints against Fleet Street publications: average = 43, Daily Mail = 153. Let us not forget that Paul Dacre was a member of the "toothless" PCC for a decade, and that they rejected over 90% of cases without investigation. Nick Davies (2011). Flat Earth News.

  Independent Press Standards Organisation from 2014 to 2015: Mail 11 breaches, Guardian 0 breaches; reparations by Mail 34 times, Guardian 0 times. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 04:23, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

  IPSO 2016: Daily Mail was the worst publication, with a total of 17 sanctions for inaccuracy. The Sun followed with 14, the Daily Express with 12. The Independent and Guardian had none. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 09:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  Sweet. But I guess most readers of The Sun don't know how to complain. Or, if they did, just think it's 100% true. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  Not so sweet. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 10:41, 14 January 2017 (UTC) "the 2014 World Cup will always be remembered as the Milkybar penis"

  I think Robin Jacobs, 31, should upload the image for the pareidolia article. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:47, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  IPSO does not regulate the Independent or the Guardian. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Or treat it like any other fake news site, how do we deal with those normally?17:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slatersteven (talk • contribs)

  as an example.Slatersteven (talk) 16:33, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. The problem isn't that it is wrong or even that they might have a rogue journalist from time to time (even the NY Times have been caught out this way), the problem is that their editorial decisions seemingly contribute to the deception. They had the Amanda Knox story ready to go with fake quotes and reactions, and there was also the time that George Clooney took them to task over fake quotes. It simply can't be trusted. Betty Logan (talk) 05:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Context matters, and that's up to the editors covering the particular issue. Whether it's a "well-established news outlet" matters, and it is. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:09, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Sort of support. As I've said previously, the problem with Daily Mail appears to be their habit of taking ludicrous sources at face value, often publishing entire articles based on a single anonymous tweet or blog post. They appear to be not as willfully gullible as say, the National Enquirer, but it doesn't come close to what we normally consider reliable. However, it's probably the case that much of their content is factually accurate, especially on non-controversial subjects. I suspect this is a case of, "what is good is not unique; what is unique is not good." Basically, if something is covered in the Daily Mail and is true, we can probably find a better source for it. If something is only covered by the Daily Mail, it's probably not true. So I would support a more complicated prohibition, that the Daily Mail should not be a source for anything controversial, and where it is a source for anything else, it should be replaced as soon as possible by a better source. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The time has come. It is already rightly unacceptable for BLPs. Lousy record for making things up, in some well-attested cases to the detriment of living people. In a world where fake news is a thing, we should avoid knowingly using material sourced from its proven purveyors. Opposers have highlighted that most of it is true, but that which is true and genuinely noteworthy will have been covered by better sources. Something only covered in the DM, which it is vital for us to cover on Wikipedia; other than its comments about itself I have not seen an example given and could not imagine such an example. I challenge opposers to come up with one. --John (talk) 00:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition There should always be a better source for anything than the Daily Mail. Nick-D (talk) 01:11, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. The reliability of a Daily Mail should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Most material is uncontroversial and mistakes occur no more often than in other publications. A user should not have to hunt around for the same fact to be found in a different source because the Daily Mail is disliked by certain editors. ¡Bozzio! 05:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • User:Bozzio, do you have evidence that mistakes occur no more often than in other publications? It doesn't match my information or the figures cited by Hillbillyholiday. --John (talk) 14:23, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition -- if a particular sources of content can only be cited to DM than it's not worth including in an encyclopedia anyway. If it were important, it would be covered by better sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:40, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support without hesitation. This is long overdue given how notorious Daily Mail is for inaccuracies, and I would also have no reservations on blacklisting it, especially after seeing flat out absurd claims like "using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer". Snuggums (talk / edits) 15:05, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, but is anyone suggesting using that piece? Everyone supporting the proposal is telling us what most of us already know: the Mail is generally not going to be a good source, either because it reports on things that would not be of interest to an encyclopedia in the first place or because much of what it reports is dubious, possibly to a greater degree than other papers. The actual question is whether a blanket ban on the Mail – and the Mail alone, as currently mooted – is needed to solve that problem, and whether it sets a dangerous precedent for people to push for "bans" on news sources they don't like for other reasons. Yes it's currently used quite a bit on WP, but I'm not aware of a widespread problem of people insisting on using it when it's removed or challenged. And, for example, are people suggesting it be banned from this page? N-HH talk/edits 15:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  The Daily Mail should be banned from that page most of all. There are plenty of reliable secondary sources that describe the actions of TDM in that case, and we should use those sources rather than trusting what the known liars at TDM say happened. Again I say, kill it. Kill it with fire. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  What, the Guardian editorial that commends the Mail's "bold journalism" (yes, in that instance)? Of course secondary sources on the Mail's role would be useful too, but my point was that a total ban would disallow even sourcing the Mail headline/front page directly to the Mail. It's a bit surreal to suggest that a Mail story is not good evidence for what that story said, or that the Mail would not accurately report what its own editor said about its actions in that case. And anyway that isn't the only such case, nor was that brief rhetorical question my main point, which was a broader one about efficacy, process and practical effect, which you haven't addressed at all. And I'm not sure constantly repeating "kill it with fire" helps rational debate. N-HH talk/edits 18:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  We have many, many sources that are banned, and all of them are by nature of being banned banned from being sources for their own headlines. Your argument can be used to argue against banning any source, no matter how bad. There will always be some contrived situation where it would be convenient to use the banned source Just This Once, but that doesn't stop us from banning sources. Nor do we want to allow individual editors to decide whether maybe this time The Daily Mail isn't lying. You want us to allow a source that has been shown to fabricate direct quotes and photos, and your arguments can be used to argue against banning any source. I stand by my "kill it with fire" comment. Wikipedia editors are grown-ups and do not need to be protected from a colorful turn of phrase. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  I'm not aware of any sources which are specifically, by name, "banned" currently or any list detailing them. And I do think individual editors can make judgments in context, not about whether a newspaper is lying in any individual instance (although obvious errors can be demonstrated by reference to other sources), but about whether certain sources might sometimes be appropriate for the material in question. Indeed, that's the basis of current policy, which is again part of my point: what is being attempted here is a rewrite of that policy, but relying on people's – entirely legitimate – concerns about one paper, which is far from the worst one out there (National Enquirer? Daily Express?) to spearhead it. It's all back to front. And as I suggested, yes, let's have grown-up discourse. N-HH talk/edits 09:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose prohibition The paper carried useful material at the time of World War I (though even then considerable caution is required) and it would be very sad to lose pictures such in St Paul's Survives which require attribution. Maybe something about requiring need would work but I'd want to see the wording to decide. Don't we effectively require need for challenged material anyway? With historical newspapers very different considerations are needed always. Thincat (talk) 20:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • That's a very important point, Thincat, and one so far wholly overlooked here, I think. Would it be feasible, or even possible, to provide some kind of year-based restriction/ regulation? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • That "heavily retouched" photo wouldn't necessarily be affected as the DM is part of the story there. There will always be exceptional cases when using the DM is necessary/desirable -- editors can demonstrate need here, and as long as their edits gain approval by consensus in the usual way, there's no problem; I really don't think it will come up too often. An edit-filter would, I assume, look for any new additions to WP which contain dailymail.com and thus pick up the more recent "stories". These are a real problem, and given the immense online presence of the DM, something that regularly comes up. A default position of the DM is barred as an unreliable source with the onus on the editor to justify its use would prevent a great deal of misinformation/lies/inaccuracies from creeping in, and would benefit those editors who currently have to make the same old arguments on talkpages across the project. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 22:34, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Yes, it would save, or at least reduce, a lot of repetitive removal. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Be very careful: few newspapers of combatant countries are solid in wartime. For the DM in WWI, consider the effect and circumstances of William Beach Thomas. - Sitush (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Be very careful also: The photo was taken in December 1940 which was actually part of World War II (1939-45) not World War I (1914-18). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition per JzG. The Daily Mail is demonstrably unreliable in comparison to other publications. Obviously there are exceptions, as Thincat demonstrates, but the presumption should be that DM isn't a reliable source. An edit filter would be a good solution. Mackensen (talk) 00:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment There is an elephant in the room here. Despite comments by some editors, it appears there is currently no blacklist, greylist or edit filter that would prevent an editor using the DM or warning them about its use. I have no doubt whatsoever that if this precedent is set, editors will be suggesting other newspapers (nobody has mentioned the Daily Star yet!). How will these be decided? An RFC for each newspaper suggested? I have tried in the past to fathom how editors reach their decisions on deciding whether a newspaper is RS or not, but all I have been met with is "It depends on the case". I am not opposing the formation of grey/blacklist/edit filter, rather the opposite: I believe editors should be made aware immediately that consensus is that a source should not be used. Currently, this is opaque and has led to massive time sinks and a certain degree of animosity from some editors. DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  @DrChrissy: The blacklist is at MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and adding a new entry there is trivial. Creating an edit filter to look for the addition of Daily Mail references also wouldn't be difficult. Sam Walton (talk) 08:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for this Sam, but this spam-list appears to only restrict URLs. As far as I know, there is no blacklist of physical newspapers, so, I could cite using the {{cite news }} template "The Daily Mail" but receive no feedback on this except from vigilant editors. DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:21, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Daily Mail gives coverage to many international news outside Europe and America. Daily Mail is not a good source in content dispute. But Daily Mail is good to prove notability of a subject. Daily Mail covers news stories which are not getting coverage in other English Media. We can use Daily Mail to establish notability of a politician, celebrity from Eastern Europe, Asia. Sometimes Daily Mail gives coverage to very ordinary things, but due to this they give coverage to many important Asian news, North African news and East-European news (where English is not official language). Marvellous Spider-Man 03:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  "Daily Mail is not a good source in content dispute" is just another way of saying "not a good source for content on Wikipedia", which is the whole point of this RfC. Sure, you can use it demonstrate notability, but that's usually only necessary at AfD. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 03:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Daily Mail can be used for articles outside USA and UK as these two countries has many reliable sources in English. The RFC doesn't say that we can use it for Romanian/Algerian/Latvian/Ukrainian/Turkish/Russian/Chinese/Japanese/Brazilian articles. Marvellous Spider-Man 03:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  If you are talking about the English Wikipedia, yes it does. The phrase "should we prohibit the use of The Daily Mail as a source?" is quite clear. If this RfC passes, The Daily Mail will not be allowed as a source on Russian or Japanese articles on the English Wikipedia. If you are talking about the Russian or Japanese Wikipedias, no decision made on the English Wikipedia is binding on those other Wikipedias. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Then, I oppose this RFC, as per my first statement. Daily Mail is very inclusive and has no WP:GEOBIAS. Marvellous Spider-Man 05:07, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. The Daily Mail, as hated as it is, is a very mixed bag. It can contain wonderful information such as accurate and informative interviews of highly respected people like Lord Puttnam (yes, I've seen that; can find the link if you need it), informative and detailed film and television articles, detailed information on various openings, galas, and so on. Many of these items are exclusives, so we can't blacklist the publication. It also has an excellent (theatre, film, etc.) review team. We just have to keep in mind that it often stoops to tabloid scandal-mongering (and ridiculous political opinions). I think any intelligent editor can tell the difference. So with this publication it has to always be on a case-by-case basis. It's a middle-market newspaper, so we cannot avoid it or blacklist it. I'd say it's not to be used as a source for politics, science, medicine. But as a source for entertainment updates it is often helpful and often contains accurate information that is not available anywhere else. If it is contradicted by a more reliable source, it should not be used. Nothing negative, contentious, or potentially libelous or in any way scandalous should be sourced to the DM (unless it is a direct quote from an interview). Softlavender (talk) 06:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose and educate Strong support not to use it for BLPs, but I see no issue on using it to report on "news". However, any editor who uses it as a source should be reminded that better sources can be found and those should be used instead (should, not must). I challenge anyone to find a notable news story in the DM that isn't covered in better sources elsewhere. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 08:20, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose The DM falls on a spectrum of news quality and it is far from the worst; singling it out for prohibition is not the solution here. It is hard not to suspect that it is being singled out because it combines a strong right-wing bias with a very large circulation. I see several editors above citing statistics regarding complaints and corrections as though this was a reason for prohibiting its use; but WP:NEWSORG gives the very fact that a complaints process exists and corrections are published as a reason to consider the source reliable. It should certainly be considered WP:BIASED, but then so should every news organisation that takes an editorial stance. This is already policy. Outright banning established, regulated, large-circulation newspapers from use on enwiki would be a terrible precedent to set, especially for having "ridiculous political opinions," as one editor has put it a few lines above. GoldenRing (talk) 10:56, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • And, for those citing statistics above, do we really think that, for a daily newspaper, averaging somewhere near 15 upheld complaints in a year is sufficient to ban the whole output of that organisation as a source? GoldenRing (talk) 11:04, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes. The volume of upheld complaints is symptomatic of the Mail's deference to editorial ideology over factual accuracy. It is legendary for the inaccuracy of its articles on medicine and science, especially. Guy (Help!) 13:34, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Here are more examples: 10 Egregiously False Stories In The ‘Daily Mail’.

  Also, see this quote:

  "You probably know the Daily Mail as a race-baiting tabloid that once supported the Nazis. But it has another, secret identity it tries to keep hidden at all costs. The Daily Mail is possibly the biggest news media troll in history. Thanks to American outlets thinking it’s a respectable news source, the Daily Mail has managed to get the media to print more hoax stories than everyone else on this list combined. In 2014, a New York–based correspondent simply made up a story about Beijing installing giant TV screens so smog-choked residents could watch fake sunrises. Time, CBS, and the Huffington Post all ran with it, despite it being clear nonsense. In 2012, the Daily Mail made up another story about a Polish dentist pulling all her boyfriend’s teeth after he cheated on her. That one fooled most of the Internet, plus MSNBC, the LA Times, and the Daily Telegraph. In 2015, the Daily Mail ran a story that was picked up by other tabloids about a guy on welfare who was too busy working out to get a job. The guy turned out to be an actor. Go digging, and you’ll find more examples of the Daily Mail flooding the media with more fake stories than we can comfortably list here. Like that time it convinced Fox News a transgender kid was harassing girls in a school bathroom. Or that time it totally made up a poll and the Huffington Post believed it. Okay, we’re calling it now: The Daily Mail is officially the greatest media troll in the world." (source)

  --Guy Macon (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Any sources that demonstrates a willingness to make shit up just to sell papers does not meet our definition of reliable source. If there are other newspapers that do this they should not be used either. Bradv 14:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support A bunch of people have made "but sometimes there's no other source" comments; well, in those cases, then, there's no legitimate source at all, and the material shouldn't be believed, much less used in Wikipedia. We waste too much time on the DM, and we aren't going to lose anything worthwhile by utterly excluding it as a source. Mangoe (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support? "Prohibit" seems like an imprecise word in the context of wikiguidelines, especially when combined with "just short of blacklisting". In general I like the idea of making "formal" that there is consensus that one should almost never use a given source, to avoid having those discussions or pointing to a smattering of RSN threads, often with unclear outcomes. Like others, I would oppose blacklisting this, but support an edit filter and certainly support the notion that this should almost never be used in articles. That seems like it would largely support this? But I see people opposing who have the same opinion. This makes me think what probably needs to happen is a more specific question within technical parameters (e.g. once an edit filter is established, an RfC to add this [and others] to it). Fun fact: in 2014, as listed in User:Emijrp/External Links Ranking, Daily Mail was our 86th most used external link, with more than 26,000 uses just in the article space. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:37, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support its classification as a non-reliable source; it simply cannot be trusted. GiantSnowman 18:47, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support except in the exceptional circumstance of where something appearing in the Mail is itself the topic ("after he was accused by the Daily Mail of…"). Any legitimate story will also be found in a genuine newspaper; anything only appearing in the Mail can usually safely be assumed to be made up. (FWIW, as I write this the Mail front page is currently informing the world that "Astronauts on board the International Space Station are hiding evidence of aliens".) ‑ Iridescent 18:54, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Read the second sentence: "At least that's the latest wild claim made by a group of UFO hunters ..." Context matters, eh? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Yes, I noticed that too. It is repeated in the caption. So we are faced with the Daily Mail reporting that a group (easily debunked - ) is making a "wild claim", but it is not the newspaper itself making the claim. Is the Daily Mail a RS for this statement? DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Never use for a BLP or anything contentious. A minority of the Mail's reporting (notably its sports, which is award winning) is absolutely fine, but its news reporting is on the level of the Sunday Sport (or for our American cousins, the National Enquirer); not only does it misrepresent stories, but it makes them up completely. Black Kite (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as Tiptoethrutheminefield "There is no justification for the blanket banning of a mass-circulation newspaper as a source. There will be cases where it is a suitable rs source. " The Mail is editorially heavily biased, but that's not the same thing as unreliable for reporting of simple objective facts. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If you say so. Pop us up a wee list, will you? Of things it is essential to cover on Wikipedia, for which there is no other source but the Mail. --John (talk) 19:23, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • You've already seen one -- brought to BLPN, closed by admin User:Number_57 with the closing sentence "There was clearly no consensus to blacklist the Daily Mail, as consensus was that the DM was an acceptable source for the material in question." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
      • I reread that and I am not seeing the list. Perhaps you could copy and paste it here when you do. Thanks. --John (talk) 07:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

        • I meant you'd already seen one case. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:56, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• OK I note I see a consensus above from basically everyone (no matter their ivote) that there needs to be guidance or restriction on this source (I say guidance because it's not fair to expect the rest of the English speaking world to know much about DM), given that, given the evidenced problems with DM, and given the policy standard for using sources is information that is "challenged or likely to be challenged," then explicitly putting everyone on notice, that the default is never use this source, unless you can convince (and are convinced) a rare exception should be made is the way to go - the proposal says "demonstrable need" - so, ok. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • 'Oppose' does not mean 'Support', there's no such consensus. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Actually, there is - many of the people opposing a blanket ban on the source do say that there are some circumstances under which the source is not reliable and should not be used. And obviously the people who think it should be banned would agree. The lack of consensus at the moment appears to be the degree of guidance and/or restriction needed. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
      • It's a dreadful source, and anyone who thinks otherwise should not be editing an encyclopedia. What we are arguing here is whether it should be outright banned or whether it can occasionally be used. --John (talk) 07:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andy Dingley above. Awful and biased as the Mail often is, there is also much that may be uncontentious. For example, take e.g. an article that I did some editing on a long time ago, on Mary Marquis, a Scottish newsreader of the '70s and '80s, who is still a much cherished and remembered figure in Scotland. The article contains multiple citations to an 1998 interview / profile piece from the Mail -- all of which, I would submit, are entirely uncontroversial; and (I submit) contribute valuably to giving a rounded-out account of her. Of course there are reasons why one should very often be cautious of the Mail, but IMO a blanket ban is not the way. I would add that, although people like to throw around the word "Tabloid", there can be a distinction between the connotations of that word on different sides of the Atlantic, and I wouldn't throw the Record or the Mirror or the Standard or Metro into the same class as eg the National Enquirer. Jheald (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • And you know that they didn't fabricate the entire interview (as they have done in other cases) ... how? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:48, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  • @Guy Macon: Given that I strongly suspect that this edit (diff) may well have been by her husband, I suspect the rest of the text is reasonably sound. It seems highly unlikely that such an interview would be fabricated -- she wasn't in the news at the time, nor particularly newsworthy, so why bother? Jheald (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Why bother getting an actual interview? Surely it is easier and cheaper to simply make up some quotes rather than bothering to interview someone. It would seem reasonable to assume that The Daily Mail choose the cheaper, faster option. Once we have established that The Daily mail fabricates such material on a regular basis, the burden of proof is on the editor who decides that they aren't lying in one particular case, and "I suspect (but do not know for sure) that the quote is sound" isn't quite good enough. Was there any other source for the quotes, or were they only in The Daily Mail? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  • @Guy Macon: It was an interview, with somebody who had already been retired for 10 years. Not a press release, not a cuttings piece, not a news story. Why would you expect anybody else to have replicated the quotes of a random human-interest piece that happened to appear in the Mail ?

  And, BTW, what's your evidence that the Mail routinely fakes interviews with random retired celebrities reflecting on their lives (ie not Amanda Knox, not crusading news stories, not shock stories from foreign websites), just people as human beings for the human interest? Jheald (talk) 12:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  They regularly fabricate quotes and interviews -- one would think that would rule them out as a reliable source -- but if that's not specific enough, here's an entirely fake interview with a random retired celebrity reflecting on his life. (bonus points for also being a copyright violation.) --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 13:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  Anyone can get hoaxed, even the New York Times. It seems to me that there is a difference between what is gossipy or sensationalist, which eg WP:BLPSOURCES rightly warns against, and what is more mundane or routine. Extraordinary claims rightly demand extraordinary sources (which the Mail definitely is not); but less extraordinary claims rather less so. For myself, I think User:softlavender wrote a lot of sense above, noting that the Mail can be quite a mixed bag, including (as they put it) a strong team of critics, "accurate and informative interviews of highly respected people like Lord Puttnam, informative and detailed film and television articles, detailed information on various openings, galas, and so on", and that many of these items are exclusives.... I think an intelligent editor can tell the difference. So with this publication it has to always be on a case-by-case basis." Jheald (talk) 07:03, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Andy Dingly. No need to blacklist a whole publication because of a few opinion pieces that may not be to some tastes. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Opinion pieces? Where did anyone mention opinion pieces? The problem is not opinion pieces, the problem is that they routinely make stuff up. --John (talk) 07:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: The paper has been around since 1896. Its bad reputation in the first few years of the 21st century speak nothing about the reliability of more than a hundred years of volumes. Clearly a blanket ban is unjustified (per Thincat). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: Existing policy is enough. If it is worth adding to a Wikipedia article, it will have appeared in better sources than the Mail and other red top British tabloids. I am not an anti-tabloid snob like some of the people here, and the broadsheets are not perfect either. However, the Mail should be off limits for anything BLP related. This discussion is reminiscent of this tweet by Gavin Phillipson, who is also a member of IMPRESS. I can be hacked off by the Daily Mail sometimes, but not enough to want to ban it outright.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:03, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The Mail lacks sufficient editorial oversight. I regularly see spelling and grammatical errors on their front page, let alone the dubious content of the actual stories.LM2000 (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  God, no, not spelling and grammatical errors! Someone better start a new RfC about the Grauniad... GoldenRing (talk) 11:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  When The Guardian starts printing patent BS on a regular basis, while also failing to check their spelling, an RfC may be appropriate.LM2000 (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Note The "bad examples" are all pretty much either "headline complaints" or "celebrity gossip" issues. One should actually read the "actual complaints" made to press groups rather than use them as "paint by numbers" proof that the DM is unreliable. I cited an actual research study above which showed that every single newspaper uses "press releases" instead of actual journalism on science articles, and, to that extent, not a single paper is actually "reliable." As for "grammatical and spelling errors", note that even the New York Times has them, as it has no paid proof-readers whatsoever. And I iterate that I know of zero "reliable sources" for "celebrity gossip" at all. Collect (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition. To claim that "The "bad examples" are all pretty much either "headline complaints" or "celebrity gossip" issues" is not true, I'm afraid. These are the lies, damned lies and the even more damned lies from outside the "headline complaints" or "celebrity gossip" issues". It's a trashy paper that cannot and should not be trusted on too many subjects for us to allow any use on any subject. These DM-lies are from "actual complaints", by the way. Take a spin over a Google search of ("Daily Mail" "factual inaccuracy") and ignoring all the websites that we wouldn't generally regard as reliable, and there are still too many sources to justify the use of the DM. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 14:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition. This is a good example of the sort of thing the Daily Mail is currently publishing. I rest my case. -- The Anome (talk) 18:31, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment the article above describes it as "the latest wild claim made by a group of UFO hunters." Silly season stuff perhaps, but not in the same league as BLP violations, or "World War 2 Bomber Found On Moon" which the Sunday Sport really did expect its readers to take seriously.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:50, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition (...And I never thought I would say that!). I was leaning towards supporting with exceptions; but I am not convinced that there are any exceptions we could make that would not be available in more reliable sources. After all, if the DM was the only source for an item, we instinctively wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 10:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. If you have an actually reliable source confirming something in the Mail, why aren't you using that? If it's just the Mail, you're doing it wrong or it's probably too ridiculously trivial to include anyways. Maybe there are exceptions, but there had better be VERY strong arguments for ANY use of the Mail. Wikipedia isn't losing much, if anything at all, by a blanket jettisoning of this crappy source. --Calton | Talk 11:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment and note to closer Well said, Calton. Although the claim has been made repeatedly, in spite of asking several times I still haven't seen where any of the opposers have actually given examples of what a DM article could best be used for on Wikipedia, other than as a primary source on its own statements. If this is still the case at the time of closure, I recommend discounting those opposes. After all, we are here for facts, not opinions. --John (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Make no mistake, The Daily Mail is a bad source. But in the realm of mass media, most sources of the junk food news variety seem very bad. And these can be published by supposedly reliable news outlets. I would much rather see this more firmly clarified in policy. The Daily Mail is a bad source, and everybody knows it. But other outlets, even "reliable" news outlets, are also guilty of publishing the same kind of churnalism as the DM. (For example, I've seen the DM quoted in a broadsheet source, which editors really ought to know better than to do.) So, if we find ourselves in a position of needing to ban the DM because it's so bad, the problem is not the DM as a source, the problem is our guidelines that are apparently lax enough to allow this to be used in the first place. Also, from the discussion above it appears as thought DM is reliable for some things, and not others. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS might require clarification; the vagueness of that guideline bothers me. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Each case has to be judged on its merits because all sources are prone to error. The Daily Mail seems fairly average as journalism goes and should not be singled out when there are many worse sources. The following specific points demonstrate this. Andrew D. (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  1. The Daily Mail is somewhat unusual for a UK paper as it was the first newspaper specifically aimed at women and is read by more women than men. For example, the word suffragette was first coined in the pages of the Daily Mail and so is naturally cited by the Oxford English Dictionary.
  2. When the singer Lynsey de Paul died, there was some confusion about her exact age. The Daily Mail was one of the few news sources which got this right.
  3. I started our article about churnalism and this can be found in most news media now. One interesting case was a project which deliberately planted fake stories to see whether they would be circulated. The Daily Mail didn't fall for this when many other news media did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Davidson (talk • contribs)

  • I am not sure that inventing a word over a century ago makes this a reliable source, nor do I think it germane what the target market was 120 years ago. - The Bounder (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with a historical perspective and so recentism should be avoided. The Daily Mail has had some particular interests over the years which may make it a good source for certain periods. For example, it started the Ideal Home Exhibition which was influential in changing households in the UK. And it supported early aviation with prizes and coverage. Andrew D. (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • That is an different point to the one you raised earlier, so thank you for your clarification. (Although starting a sales exhibition is, again, no guarantee of being a reliable source). - The Bounder (talk) 16:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Does citing any of those require a link to the daily mail website? Because the daily mail website is what we are talking about banning here, not citations to material that was published long before computers existed. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • The Daily Mail was a newspaper for most of its history. Its website is a new thing with a different editorial team. And there are other publications like Metro and the Mail on Sunday. The proposal seems unclear. Andrew D. (talk) 16:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Is it clearer if we change it from "Should we prohibit the use of The Daily Mail as a source?" to "Should we prohibit the use of DailyMail.com as a source?" --John (talk) 16:22, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

  • It would be clearer but it's not clear if that was the original proposal. Some people here seem to be Americans who may only be familiar with the website but the orginal proposer seems to be British and so have meant the newspaper proper. It's a muddle. Such issues are best sorted out on a case-by-case basis as is our usual practise. Andrew D. (talk) 19:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• And just in today .Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Related: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Daily Mail RfC --Guy Macon (talk) 21:10, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• "Support prohibition': Although Daily Mail isn't always incorrect, many of its stories are dubious, do not have proper journalistsic standards and are meant for sensationalization. Although not everything is false, it still cannot be regarded as trustworthy or reliabile because of what it does. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition with the exception mentioned in the proposal (and possibly with a restricted date range; I am sure it is a useful source for some things in the past). The Daily Mail of today contains too many (probably deliberate) factual errors to be used as a source. —Kusma (t·c) 11:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Note that many of the examples cited here and elsewhere on Wikipedia are either of "celebrity gossip" for which I find no sources actually reliable, and "headline claims" again for which no source should be asserted. Note that the article with the headline "Is Nasa hiding aliens? Astronaut covers up evidence of mystery flashing lights moving past the space station, UFO hunters claim" is specifically about "wild claims" by "a group of UFO hunters" and is not a claim that NASA is hiding anything at all, and specifically is not the claim made above by a colleague here. The actual article clearly states: At least that's the latest wild claim made by a group of UFO hunters who believe they have spotted strange flashing lights near the ISS. In short, the DM is accurate on the topic. When giving "examples" it behooves us all to use accurate examples, lest Wikipedia be viewed, itself, as the laughingstock. I suggest any closer deprecate !votes made with clearly errant "examples" or which are clearly based on political or other opinions, and not on the use of one of the world's most-read journals. Collect (talk) 13:12, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• .... I suggest any closer deprecate !votes made with clearly errant "examples" or which are clearly based on political or other opinions Huh, you mean like the statement where you made the blatantly false statement the DM's record is akin to the record of The Guardian and other broadsheets? --Calton | Talk 22:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

And when you quote others, kindly quote them accurately. As you elided the rest of my statement so cavalierly, I suggest you seek employment as a journalist. lists the salient facts, and you manage to elide my clear statement

In fact, moreover, other than in the area of celebrity gossip (where no paper should be trusted in the first place),

and the elision of that part of the sentence might appear to neutral parties to excise a key part of my position. Did you actually read the scholarly study about blind use of press releases, by the way? Collect (talk) 13:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

...except that that by no means are the false stories all related to celebrity gossip. There's the slew of fiction about the hordes of Eastern European immigrants invading Britain (including a story with twenty-six falsehoods in it which was even discribed as nonsense by the Conservative government), the one where they said Israel was opening dams to flood the Gaza Strip and get rid of Palestinians (the Mail showing it hasn't dropped its WWII anti-semitism), the one that said women working full-time caused autism in their children, the one about semen being an anti-depressant, the one about the giant hedgehog ... etc. You do realise that the Mail does this purely for clickbait for its website, don't you? Black Kite (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid Black Kite is right, Collect. As I said at AN, your mistake seems to be to buy in to the Mail's world-view in which any newsworthy person is treated as a "celebrity" about whom lies can be told, with the expectation that most will not sue. Wikipedia cannot afford to follow this line for ethical and possibly legal reasons. --John (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Black Kite gave no URLs but I think I see some of the articles. The "Gaza flood" story was corrected, now it's Gaza Floods: Dispelling the myth about Israeli 'dams'. The "autism" story is merely a report of what a theorist said. The "giant hedgehog" story is clearly about a sculpture. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:56, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition with edit filter, with exceptions for when it is actually indispensable. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
  to reply to me 13:54, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Hope is today's featured article. I read through this just now as it is an interesting and topical article. At the end, notice that it cites the Daily Mail. Andrew D. (talk) 14:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
  • "according to an unverified report in the Daily Mail". In any case the DM is a primary source there and the statement is also supported by a secondary source, so it doesn't really matter if the DM citation is removed. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
    to reply to me 14:09, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support It's not a good source, and it won't be useful in the vast majority of cases, so it shouldn't be used. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - This publication has a poor reputation as many others have already shown. In the rare event that they are the only source that covers something of encyclopedia value, unrelated to living people, exceptions can be made. As a side note, I think we should have a subpage that lists sources that should be avoided such as The Daily Mail, Breitbart, and WND.- MrX 17:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support, anything that actually cites it will probably be removed anyway, so banning the source itself is a easy solution. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support rational prohibition According to the Daily Mail, this is an oppose vote. --AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 02:42, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support as it is not a reliable source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:43, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - There's worse sources out there!, On the whole DM is okay and should be used where necessary. –Davey2010^Talk 19:35, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose total blacklisting References are used to verify facts, and perhaps the Mail is not reliable for this. However, they are also used to demonstrate notability. I would use a Mail reference as a second source for a fact that was also verified by another source. For example: I work on a lot of articles about musical groups. Often quite a bit of information can be verified by articles in local press or online music magazines, but coverage in a national paper carries more weight when deciding if a band meets notability requirements.—Anne Delong (talk) 05:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Anne Delong. Marvellous Spider-Man 03:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources should be verifiable, so if as you say, the facts in the daily mail are not verifiable, then they are not a reliable source. Only reliable sources can be used to establish notability, per WP:GNG. Therefore the daily mail is not a reliable source nor can it be used to establish notability, so this oppose seems to be misguided. I would also note that in practice I would never consider the daily mail to be a source that establishes GNG over at AfC, or when patrolling new pages.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  04:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

You don't consider, but I consider it as a reliable source. We are opposing "total" blacklisting. Daily Mail is very reliable source for entertainment and sports. Daily Mail haters can keep Daily Mail out of Science, Religion, Race, Astronomy, Economics, British politics and American politics related articles. Marvellous Spider-Man 05:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

The Daily mail has printed a large number of factual inaccuracies, in some cases blatant lies in 'entertainment' articles, so I don't think they should ever be considered a reliable source there (a quick scan of this RfC will reveal several of the best examples). As for sports, while their reporting in this area seems relatively verifiable, very rarely does the Daily Mail ever report anything that is not also covered in other, more reliable, sports sources. Therefore they are not essential for this category, and it should not be the reason they are not blacklisted.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

And Wikipedia also has many notable hoax articles. Do we need factual and scientific accuracy for tooth fairy, dragons, wizards, bigfoot articles? If Daily Mail is used in these articles about mythical and urban legends, what is so wrong about it? Marvellous Spider-Man 05:30, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Not sure what you are asking here, factual and scientific accuracy is always essential for all articles, as is not applying undue WP:WEIGHT to extraordinary claims. I do not see how the Daily Mail's coverage can help anything with regards to fringe, pseudoscience, myth or hoax articles. On the contrary, as an editor in many fringe areas of the wiki I, and many others, delete Daily Mail citations on sight.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I edit a lot of articles about musicians, novelists, actors and other artists. Their notability is often determined by the amount of discussion and review of their work. A lot of this is opinion. Is there evidence that the professional reviewers at the Daily Mail don't write actual opinions? If not, I don't see why, for instance, a review can't be cited to show positive or negative "reception", for example. A blacklisting would mean that citations to the paper would be physically blocked; the even obvious facts such as "she was featured in a full page article in the Daily Mail" couldn't be cited. These limited uses should be allowed.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition -- because this will improve the encyclopedia. Any losses are outweighed by gains. It's more of a problem to include a crappy claim (sourced to the Mail) than it is to leave something out. Moreover, the likelihood of leaving something out simply because of a probation on the Mail seems quite low -- if it's worth including, then we'll likely find other sources. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. I share the opinion that the Daily Mail is not remotely trustworthy in many respects - certainly not in a lot of its news and politics coverage. But I think a blanket prohibition on citing it is overkill. For one thing, its financial coverage is often very good, and I'm also told it does sports just fine too (I never read about sports so I wouldn't know myself). Then there's the thing about notability - even if a DM story might not be good enough to support a factual claim on its own, it can be useful for adding to the sources that demonstrate notability. I think we do fine as we are, judging each use of a DM source in its own context, and I see no need to change that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:43, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I've said it before, I'll say it again, how can the Daily Mail establish notability if it isn't considered a reliable source? The two are mutually exclusive. Moreover, if it is not trustworthy, then surely far less damage is done by banning it than by allowing it, especially as the areas you pointed out. Even where the DM are mostly reliable, we have plenty of good reliable coverage elsewhere and these areas are not even the primary areas of interest for the Daily Mail (they cannot be considered to be experts on financial matters, nor is this their primary focus).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  18:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Re" "Even where the DM are mostly reliable, we have plenty of good reliable coverage elsewhere", I would add that those very few times when we have no reliable coverage elsewhere are almost always the times when The Daily Mail decided to simply make things up. If there is a better source, use that source. If there isn't a better source, then the rational assumption is that it didn't happen the way The Daily Mail said it happened. Remember, The Daily Mail doesn't just fabricate things to make a point. Sometimes they fabricate things because they are too lazy to get the facts and because to a Daily Mail reporter there are never any negative consequences to telling lies. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere:I've said it before, I'll say it again, how can the Daily Mail establish notability if it isn't considered a reliable source? To be perfectly fair, I could point to a number of conspiracy theories that have never received much coverage in reliable sources, but their widespread attribution in popular-yet-unreliable sources demonstrates their notability. As a general rule, I would say an unreliable source can still be used to establish notability, though with far (FAR) less weight than a reliable source. And only when said unreliable source is fairly popular, like the Daily Mail. I'm not going to argue this point, though. I wouldn't hold it to be unreasonable for an editor to insist that only reliable sources can evince notability, it's just not my interpretation, and it's one to which there are exceptions on WP. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:53, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants Far be it from me to insist that editorial judgement isn't necessary, I've seen plenty of AfD discussion similar to what you've been talking about, where a cobbled together group of -ish sources are used to demonstrate notability. I've even agreed in some cases. There is always room for a little WP:IAR. However I must point out that my comments above are in line with WP:GNG. According to WP policy, only reliable, independent, sources demonstrate notability. There are good reasons why these restrictions exist, and in the case of the Daily Mail, they apply rather aptly in my opinion.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

InsertcleverphrasehereYou may be exactly right about the policy pages. I've never spent much time reading those particular ones (on notability), because discussions of notability are so hairy anyways, and can go either way, with both sides accusing the other of clear policy violations. Generally, I've only ever read them to verify that what an editor put in quote marks as coming from that page actually did (it shocks me how often it doesn't...) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Oppose. The Daily Mail is reliable for general news. They are under much tougher libel laws in the UK than US papers, so they do check their facts. SW3 5DL (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

It is exactly their reputation for not fact checking that is the problem. I don't know much about libel laws in Britain, but the consequences can't be that strict given the stuff that the DM has printed, and gotten away with (here are 10, with a surprisingly varied list of subject matter --note that i found this in 5 seconds, there are FAR, FAR more. ). I find this Oppose to be rather odd, as if he/she has not read the above section, as it is clear that the DM has the opposite reputation from the one implied in this comment.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Honestly the more I look the more their behavior disgusts me. in this story they got sued, but they just keep continuing to print false made up shit. The libel laws might mean they get sued, but they make money from the carnage anyway so what do they care for the truth? Blacklist it already, at a certain point we need to have some professional integrity.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

• Tepid support. I do fully support the idea the the Daily Mail is not a reliable source for anything because it does not have a reputation for fact checking. If there is something that would maybe considered from the Daily Mail for sourcing, mention of that content should be found in a different source. Otherwise, it isn't of sufficient weight. Regardless of blacklist or not, this RfC should be closed with this idea either way. I'm hesitant to blacklist a source in general, especially since anyone should be able to link to this RfC's close to demonstrate it's not a reliable, end of story, but I haven't seen an example above that would indicate blacklisting would harm anything either. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Question: Wire-service stories. As well as its own internally rewritten stories, Mail Online also carries a lot of wire stories verbatim, often from AP, and often at greater, more complete length than other sites -- see eg its "wires" main page, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/index.html . Such stories can be distinguished by the "Wires" strap at the top, the lack of a comments section at the bottom, and perspectives that can often seem somewhat at variance to the Mail's usual obsessions / imposed editorial lines. Is there any objection to continuing to use wire-service reports, identified as such, that happen to be being distributed via the Mail site -- since the reporting for such stories will be AP's, rather than the Mail's own? Jheald (talk) 06:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Wire stories are, by their very nature, generally available in other publications. It's back to the point of 'if it's a reliable and newsworthy piece of information, someone else will also have published it'. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 07:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Remember the Murder of Meredith Kercher? Remember the dramatic end to the court case? Let us recall with the aid of a Daily Mail article.

  As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.

  A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.

  Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.

  Sources: PoliticalScrapbook, Guardian, Journalism.co.uk

  What a colourful bit of reporting. Makes you feel like you are right there in the courtroom, watching Knox be carted off to jail. It makes you feel the stoic suffering of the Kercher family too. Exactly the sort of human interest one would wish to inject into a courtroom story.

  Just one minor problem. It didn't happen. Knox wasn't found guilty. All that colour reporting was made up. The quotes were made up. This wasn't just a prepared background story they published by accident. This was an article purporting to present direct on-the-ground reporting and quotes from involved parties. With this record, why should anyone trust a word they say on anything? —Tom Morris (talk) 15:40, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Five years ago MailOnline had a false post re Knox for slightly over a minute before correcting, their explanation and apology is here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Good job missing the point entirely. The point isn't that they accidentally published the wrong story or how fast they fixed the error. Lots of newspapers make mistakes, and the correction was very fast indeed. The point is that they admitted to making up direct quotes and eyewitness reports. The point is that the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint against the Daily Mail (and upheld it again in adjudication), saying "the article had sought to present contemporaneous reporting of events (describing, in colourful terms, how individuals had physically behaved) which simply had not taken place. This was clearly not acceptable.". and "it is vitally important that descriptions of events, especially trials, are published in a manner which complies with the Editors' Code. Describing reactions and behaviour that have not taken place, in a factual manner as if they had, must always raise a breach of Clause 1 of the Code." --Guy Macon (talk) 17:29, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Oppose. This is ridiculous that you even consider to ban such a large newspaper. It reminds me of a witch hunt or collective responsibility (good articles banned by default, because someone else did something wrong earlier). Someone reverted DM as a source, even though DM was the only source, which actually bothered to interview the authors of the paper, therefore it was a better source than all other sources. There was nothing wrong with that DM article the only reason for removal was actually this discussion here. That can't be right. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

That removal was me, you've steadfastly ignored me in the past when I informed you that the DM is not appropriate for fringe articles. The problem is that the DM has outright fabricated interviews before, and it is impossible to verify if they have done so again. The issue is one of verifiablity; facts found only in the Daily Mail are not verifiable, therefore they can't be used as a sole source for content, especially contentious content like the instance you are talking about.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  18:48, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

It is not "impossible to verify if they have done so again". It is easily verifiable in this case, just ask the authors of the paper, if DM interviewed them and if they confirm that the quotes in DM are true. Their e-mail addresses are in the paper. Also, please note that other massmedia often quote DM, so if they do it why shouldn't we? They should know better after all. Journalism is their profession. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 22:08, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

That would effectively be original research. The reason why we rely on published *reliable* sources is precisely to avoid doing that sort of leg-work. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

If you cant trust a source to print truthfully, and have to contact the authors to verify that the haven't lied *this time*, then the source is of no use at all. Also, the act of verifying with the authors directly can't be used on wikipedia as it would constitute original research (and now we have to take your word for it--and so-on ad nauseum). Reliable sources must have a reputation for reliability (within reason, everybody makes small errors from time to time), if they don't, they are no use at all to an encyclopedia. The DM has shown a reckless disregard for truth.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:38, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Besides, I did ask the authors of the paper if DM interviewed them and if they confirm that the quotes in DM are true. They said no. Either that or I am lying through my teeth to make a point. What is Truth? If only we had some sort of policy where you didn't have to trust me to not tell lies... --Guy Macon (talk) 00:17, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

As for other media outlets quoting the DM, many have been caught out by doing this, republishing false stories. As a result, the republishing of DM stories is now rare, except in cases where the other sources are either just as unscrupulous as the DM, or else where the other authors have done the legwork necessary to verify that the quotes are true themselves.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support, but allow on a case-by-case basis. The default should be to exclude it instead of include it. Some people have argued that it is reliable for sports or entertainment reporting, and they can make their case on the article talk pages. For everything else, it appears to be wildly unreliable. Editors, including people on this page, shouldn't have to re-litigate the issue endlessly. Felsic2 (talk) 02:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Guilty until proven innocent. We should begin with a straightforward recognition of policy as codified in WP:V; i.e., the Mail does not have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Nevertheless it is possible for things to be true even if the Mail prints them. Thus while we should presume that the Mail is an inappropriate source, there may be specific circumstances where it would be appropriate to cite the Mail. The burden of proof will lie on editors wishing to use material cited to the Mail. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:42, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Time and time again the DM shows that it absolutely does not have a reputation for accuracy. If there is a demonstrable need to cite it, that can be argued on a case by case basis, but for the most part I think it's time we put our foot down and admitted that the DM simply isn't reliable. Sam Walton (talk) 11:16, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The DM has been caught misrepresenting and outright fabricating stories far too many times to be considered reliable for anything. Capeo (talk) 17:39, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition Editors are entrusted with the responsibility of uphold the integrity of Wikipedia by presenting appropriate trusted citations for article content.--Moxy (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The Daily Mail like the National Enquirer is not a source suitable for an encylopedia. It is the worst kind of sensationalist, gutter journalism imaginable. After the result in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union just last year the Mail infamously attacked the judges as enemies of the people and pejoratively referred to one of the judges as "openly gay". This is a publication that publishes hoaxes about solar panels made from human hair, falls for parody Steve Jobs Twitter accounts, falsely accused Nicholas Cage of tax evasion ; had to apologise for lying about George Clooney and his in-laws, steals and republishes stories hours later under false by-lines and has a permanent obsession with Kim Kardashian's backside. It has no legitimate place here and it demeans our work. AusLondonder (talk) 02:34, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support This should be obvious, so there is some dismay at seeing this discussed. Blacklist it. Anything that they accidentally get right can always be sourced from a reliable source. First Light (talk) 10:28, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• Very conditional support: if the implementation is an edit filter set on "warn", and as a temporary measure pending further discussion. (This is a next-best solution given that I am coming late to the battle.)

The DM, or at least its current editorial process, is crap and I see no circumstance whatsoever where they would be a reliable independent source. While this is IMO already covered by existing policy, it would make sense to adopt an automatic process to catch violations in new edits because it is easy to implement (match the URL string) and the false-positive rate will be extremely low. (Side note: the quality of the mainstream press is some areas (e.g. science news) is extremely low as well, but the key words are in some areas, whereas the DM is unreliable everywhere)

However, the technical implementation of the RfC will be either an edit filter or a spam blacklist entry, both of which are philosophically different from an "unreliable source" block. The former targets vandalism, the latter targets promotional edits / SEO attempts / etc.

What I would like to see is an RfC establishing the use of WP:EDITFILTER (or whatever other mechanism is chosen) as an "unreliable source filter", with details of how to add a source, how edits are logged/rejected etc.; then adding the DM to it (along with others, methinks). I doubt the second step will meet any opposition, but the first one could attract both opposition on philosophical grounds and technical remarks. Of course, it is far too late to debate that here, but technical questions will not go away - best-case scenario, they are debated in a second RfC where the focus on the DM obscures the full picture, worse-case a developer guesses what to do once asked by admins to "implement the RfC". Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:53, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition due to the long run of problems with it. The publisher lost its reputation as reliable source. I don't think encyclopedia will suffer without it. There are plenty of other sources around. It would be a very dangerous situation indeed if DM hold a monopoly on some piece of info. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
• It's complicated. I oppose a blanket prohibition, because there are some realms where the Daily Mail is perfectly fine as a source. Non-tabloid reporting of sports, for instance; it tends to contain some good human interest type stories about sportspeople. Also, older articles from before the paper went to shit. It should never be used to source controversial claims, though. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 09:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Really? Most of the stories about sportspeople I have seen in the Mail (admittedly this is coloured by the fact that I actively seek to avoid both sports and the Mail) appear to be salacious gossip. Guy (Help!) 21:46, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: Whoops! I intended to go grab some example articles to show you, but I realized I've accidentally conflated the Daily Mail with the Daily News. The latter has very useful sports coverage (see, for instance, Ian Allen (gridiron football)). The former, I'm not too familiar with. I've struck my comment. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 12:18, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• support. If you had asked me before this, I would have said it was excluded as a tabloid, not a newspaper, and nowhere near being a reliable source. But if it needs clarifying with a formal prohibition and guideline then I support it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:43, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support for anything to do with current affairs. I have just had to correct a wild assertion at Brexit in which an editor cited a DM claim that a vote approving the first reading of a Bill means that the Bill has been passed.^[1] This is beyond incompetent journalism. [I have corrected the information in the article but let the DM citation stand, tagged with {{better source needed}}. Post-truth "journalism" is completely inimical to the most fundamental principles of Wikipedia and we should not collude with it. "See this diff for details" . -John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:12, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Meet every aspect of WP:NEWSORG--Shrike (talk) 14:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Um, WP:NEWSORG is information about how to treat sources from news organizations. It doesn't define what a news organization is, let alone define what a reliable news organization is. You may want to read that link before you try to use it in this way again. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:05, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Not every story DM publishes are unreliable, and a blanklet ban neglects undisputed articles on actual news stories, sports coverage, etc. Any DM article that is unreliable, disputed, etc should be dealt with on a case by case basis, as with other tabloid-style news outlets. Speaking as an Australian, the Australian version of the Daily Mail does contain junk, but it also publishes serious local news and sport stories as well and also runs exclusive stories, and in a relatively small media market like Australia, where DM is almost always in the top 5 most read news outlets, outright banning Daily Mail Australia as a source would lead to less verifiability available and ignores any good journalism they do. -- Whats new?^(talk) 02:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support unconditionally, to say the DM is garbage is a vast understatement. It's a good read if you're looking for salacious libel or right-wing propaganda, but that's about as far as it goes. Laurdecl ^talk 03:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support right-wing tabloid trash BrandNewEditor2017 (talk) 19:31, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Note: Just thought I'd point out that this !vote is the 3rd edit from the editor above. I have my suspicions about either someone with a POV to push or a SOCK. I do not believe this !vote should be given serious consideration in the count. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support The Daily Mail is untrustworthy even by tabloid standards. Revolting rag and not one that any entity claiming to be an encyclopaedia should be citing for anything other than what the DM says about itself. Spartaz ^Humbug! 09:32, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Impact assessment ?

It's increasingly common for real-world legislatures to be required to consider impact assessments when considering new regulations or legislation. In that spirit, do we have an idea of an impact assessment for the proposal under discussion? How many citations do we have in all to the Mail at the moment, and quantitatively what sort of things are those references for? Jheald (talk) 06:39, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

There are just under 12,000 links to the Daily Mail. Not all of them are links to footnotes but then not all footnotes for the DM are linked to the article. So my guess it is in the thousands, and mostly source non-controversial facts. I have no idea how much of this can be replaced. The DM provides detailed coverage of crime, celebrities and sports which may not be in other sources. Also, we need to establish what sources are acceptable. It would be wasteful to change all the references to the Daily Express, which is almost identical to the DM and find it is banned as well. TFD (talk) 07:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

The DM should not be used for coverage of crime or celebrities, period, they have been known to outright fabricate facts/quotes/even whole interviews. As for sports, any coverage they have made will invariably also be covered in other sources, unless it is gossip claptrap which has no business being on wikipedia. There will be some adjustment, but almost all of it will be for the better.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  08:34, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you name any source at all which is reliable for "celebrity gossip" in the current universe? Note also that most of the complaints are about the content of headlines, and not about the content of articles otherwise. As I have iterated, on science and medical stories, every single newspaper studied relies on press releases, and errors are invariably found in those press releases. No major newspapers even have proofreaders any more. Ruling out the DM for using those same press releases is thus inane. Headlines are not part of an actual article, and the fact is that Guardian headlines are just as apt as DM headlines to be inaccurate. And note finally that blacklisting one source will absolutely result in blacklisting many sources, and one ought to anticipate the furor over dealing with politicized sources on the I-P conflicts, etc. Better to not open that can of worms, in my considered opinion. Collect (talk) 15:51, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

"Note also that most of the complaints are about the content of headlines, and not about the content of articles otherwise." I'm afraid that is just not true. Many (most?) of the examples given in this thread are about the content, not their titles. You've made this claim more than once, and it's been dismissed more than once. – The Bounder (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

And Collect is, again, confused about how newspaper jobs and how newspapers work. Daily newspapers don't employ proofreaders; that function is covered by copy editors. This confusion isn't as bad as his absolute howler, his breathless claim that the New York Times had laid off all of their factcheckers: daily newspapers don't have factcheckers. I ran that last B.S. claim past an actual New York Times reporter, and he agreed that it was, in fact, B.S. I have no idea what his hand-waving about "press releases" is supposed to mean, unless he's attempting to confuse reprinted press releases with actually reported stories. --Calton | Talk 11:31, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• I assess the impact of The Daily Mail on Wikipedia to be 100% bad. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:01, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
• If I had the power to revoke someone's ability to publish, DailyMail would be it. It is entirely unreliable. Anything that isn't fake would be backed by other sources. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:04, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• "The Mail's editorial model depends on little more than dishonesty, theft of copyrighted material, and sensationalism so absurd that it crosses into fabrication. Yes, most outlets regularly aggregate other publications' work in the quest for readership and material, and yes, papers throughout history have strived for the grabbiest headlines facts will allow. But what DailyMail.com does goes beyond anything practiced by anything else calling itself a newspaper. In a little more than a year of working in the Mail's New York newsroom, I saw basic journalism standards and ethics casually and routinely ignored. I saw other publications' work lifted wholesale. I watched editors at the most highly trafficked English-language online newspaper in the world publish information they knew to be inaccurate." ---Source: My Year Ripping Off the Web With the Daily Mail Online --Guy Macon (talk) 07:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Not necessarily to dispute what is said there, but Gawker is not exactly a paragon of journalistic integrity either. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:33, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

See Daily Mail's price for Gawker settlement: Words, not money "The lengthy statement to be added includes the Daily Mail's refutation of King's claim that the company depends on "dishonesty, theft of copyright material', and the publication of material we 'know to be inaccurate'." It goes on to say King worked "sporadic shifts at DailyMail.com" and "threatened a woman editor with violence and had to be repeatedly reminded about the need for proper attribution in his work."" The reporter who emitted the scandalous claims turns out to have rather clayish feet. Collect (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Seriously? If he didn't have "feet of clay" he would have quit in less than an hour. Only a sleazeball is able to say what it is like working for The Daily Mail because only a sleazeball is willing to work for The Daily Mail. Besides, I don't believe what The Daily Mail says about an ex-employee any more than I believe what they wrote about George Clooney or Melania Trump.

If you seriously doubt the truth of what he wrote, how do you explain this? What it’s like to fall victim to the Mail Online’s aggregation machine

We need to ban The daily Mail not just because it knowingly lies, but also because anything published by the daily mail has a good chance of being a copyright violation. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:53, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, clearly it turns out that the Gawker story was so wrong that it had to be pulled--wait, it's still there, just with the addition of The Mail's "Letter to the Editor"-style response and the original writer's rebuttal. Gee, not as damning as you're trying to imply. --Calton | Talk 11:37, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Did you know that Gawker is kindasorta dead? "Gawker.com is shutting down today, Monday 22nd August, 2016, some 13 years after it began and two days before the end of my forties. It is the end of an era." Few dead sites actually do much more than lie in Internet repose. Collect (talk) 14:38, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Further to "fake news" allegations: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38790254 Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Example (covering the Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, and Times) In 2008, researchers at the Cardiff School of Journalism, UK, discovered that 60 percent of the articles in British newspapers the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent had been copied from wire reports and press announcements issued by various corporations, businesses and universities. Three out of four such stories had also gone to print without being fact-checked, a trend that seems widespread: in 2012, an audit sponsored by the European Observatory of Journalism found factual errors in approximately half of all news stories published in Switzerland, Italy and the United States :60% - and including the "elite" newspapers (Guardian and Times) in the same group. Collect (talk) 16:42, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is a very widespread problem. The effort to ban the Mail seems misplaced. As I said in my comment, what we need is shoring up our guideline against the increasing problem of poor quality control in "reliable" sources. The Mail is merely the lowest hanging fruit of an orchard of journalistic malfeasance. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

The results so far

We are now 7 days away from the normal 30-day RfC closing.

So far it looks like we have 46 support !votes and 24 oppose !votes. (My rough count; a more careful count should be made checking for dupes)

There were 7 !votes in the last 5 days (all suppport) and zero !votes in the last 2 days.

(Crossposted to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Daily Mail RfC). --Guy Macon (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Have any of the "supports" cited Wikipedia policy or precedent to support their proposed blanket ban of a major mass-circulation print and online newspaper? In contrast, many of the "oppose" opinions do cite policy to support their position. I think it would have been better for the proposer to have gone and had a private fume about the Daily Mail on their own time and not wasted everyone's time here (both supporters and opposers) by proposing something that is, basically, unenforceable and against Wikipedia policy. Reading the ridiculous tirades by those with an over-obsession about the Daily Mail has provided some amusement though: like the proposer comparing it to the house newspaper of the Nazi party and the above vote summarizer claiming "only a sleazeball is willing to work for The Daily Mail". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:35, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I stand by my assertion that only a sleazeball is willing to work for The Daily Mail. I also assert that only a sleazeball scientist is willing to become a house scientist for one of the tobacco companies and author studies about smoking being safe, and that only a sleazeball medical doctor (I am looking at you, Dr. Oz) touts homeopathic remedies. Res ipsa loquitur -- the thing speaks for itself.

As for Wikipedia policy, the policy that the supporters cite is Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, specifically "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts", "Sources that publish fake news are not reliable for facts or opinion", "[A good source] engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy". this page is filled with dozens of specific examples of The Daily Mail failing these criteria. And many of the oppose !votes agree that TDM has a poor reputation for checking the facts.

You claim that "many of the 'oppose' opinions do cite policy to support their position". Please list those policies. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:16, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Point of order: It should be noted that the addition of Sources that publish fake news are not reliable for facts or opinion is recent and is currently being discussed on the relevant talk. TimothyJosephWood 23:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't realize that. I struck that part of my response; I only want to cite long-established and non-contentious policies here. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield I am a bit confused, I don't see Oppose vote!s citing policy above. I've just had a read through the entire section above and have not found a single instance of someone citing policy in an oppose vote above (I might have missed something of course). On the contrary, nearly everyone admits that the Mail's reputation for fact checking is terrible, admit that they often print false material and then go on to argue that we should somehow try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most say that while some of the Mail's publications are terrible, some are good and worthwhile. However, if we are going to be honest, nearly everyone here, (oppose or support) agrees that the reputation for fact checking is terrible, and there are many instances cited above that show blatant printing of known false information or outright fabrication of interviews that did not happen. Given these facts, how can we suppose that editors are to know if the DM is being honest this time? How do you know that the interview that was cited actually happened and that the DM didn't fabricate it as they have done before? The short answer is that we can't, that is why WP policy doesn't allow sources that have a reputation for printing false information, and have a reputation for not checking their facts before printing. If nearly everyone, oppose or support, is in agreement that they don't check their facts and are inaccurate, the answer is simple, they are not a reliable source and should not be used on Wikipedia.

How restricting the DM on wiki actually works is a different story. We can add it to the blacklist, so that sources containing their URL can't be added, or we could simply note it on one of the policy pages as being a non-reliable source, and then citations can be removed on a case by case basis. That's up to the closers, and likely a future RfC, but I think it is clear given the discussion above that nearly everyone is in agreement on the fact that the DM is not reliable in many cases, even most of those opposing an outright ban.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:52, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we will be seeing that list of policies cited by oppose !voters any time soon. They appear to be homeopathic policies... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 08:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I specifically cited policies, as well as actual studies of newspaper usage of press releases. That the people who call the DM the "Daily Heil" seem to feel personal animus is sufficient to ban a journal is, I fear, not supported by actual published studies. I also note that the very same people who ask that it be banned have done so repeatedly in the past, and that the upshot has always been that no newspaper is a "reliable source" for celebrity gossip, and that the headlines for every newspaper are designed to get readers, and only the body of the article is what counts. I also note that actual data is superior to anecdotal hatred of any source, and that my position is the same for many other unpopular journals of all ilks. Collect (talk) 12:47, 1 February 2017 UTC)

When I said "Oppose" I quoted the WP:IRS guideline. Now you're quoting a different section re reputation. I expect that any big entity has a bad reputation in some quarters; these are some reasons I say that The Daily Mail has a good reputation in some other quarters: according to peers, to other reliable sources, and to Wikipedia. (1) British Press Awards has declared it National Newspaper Of The Year at least six times; to take a recent year for an example (2014) its journalists were recognized as Young Journalist Of The Year, Sports Journalist Of The Year, Interviewer Of The Year Pop, Columnist Of The Year Pop. The Mail On Sunday and the web site have been winners too, but maybe the ban proposal isn't about them (there's some "muddle" about what the ban proposal is about). (2) I checked the Wikipedia entries of current Mail columnists -- Baz Bamigboye, Craig Brown, Alex Brummer, Stephen Glover, Max Hastings, Dominic Lawson, Quentin Letts, Richard Littlejohn, Jan Moir, Bel Mooney, Andrew Pierce, Amanda Platell, Martin Samuel, Tom Utley, Sarah Vine -- and saw a few had been accused of something (distasteful, hatchet job, hypocrisy, plagiarism) but not that their reputation in general was poor. As for op-ed columnists: reality-TV judge Simon Cowell + former communist Claire Fox + Google/Alphabet executive Eric Schmidt + politician David Cameron etc. are controversial, but to some of us that's still okay. This is relevant because the proposal would ban even attributed opinions, though of course there's some muddle about that too. (3) from a source with a better reputation than gawker (a New Yorker article): "The Mail pours money into its product, triple-commissioning features and flooding doorsteps with reporters when its competitors are content, or compelled, to rely on wire reports.", (and quoting a former editor of The Independent) "Even if a story has been somewhere else, you’ll find it the next day in the Mail, done bigger, very often done better ...". (4) Quoting WP:IRS again: "One signal that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy is the publication of corrections." As we've seen above, the Mail does that, so some of the supporters' weak anecdotes are actually evidence for the opposers. (5) those 12,000 cites indicate what many editors think, maybe they'd rather outnumber the 46 !votes for "support". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Let's not pretend that one side has clear policy on its side and the other doesn't. WP:RS contrasts mainstream publications with self-published blogs and wesbites, and WP:NEWSORG is quite clear in its current presumption:

• "'News reporting' from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors)"

The issue is whether the Mail is an exception to that guideline, not one about policy or guidelines per se. Plenty of people, myself included, have argued that current RS and other rules re tabloid journalism, due weight, bias in sources, context etc and editorial common sense deal with the problem, such as it is (and I admit there's quite a big one with the Mail as a whole, but as there is, to an even greater degree sometimes, with plenty of media sources). And beyond that of course, what the proposers are asking for is a entirely new policy, based around a one-paper blacklist, possibly even enforced automatically so that this one paper literally cannot be cited. An entirely reasonable conclusion here that the Mail is pretty much best avoided, for various reasons, along perhaps with a slight rewrite of the main RS guidelines to stress the problems with using media sources, is a very different thing from an out-of-the-blue formal, outright ban on just one mid-market paper, enforced by technology, with no exceptions. There's a huge hurdle to get over to justify that. N-HH talk/edits 22:00, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Point of order: if those 12,000 citations are allowed to outnumber the 46 support !votes, then all the other citations to all the other sources should be allowed to outnumber the 24 oppose !votes. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Citations don't !vote.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:14, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

"Ain't ya glad that shoes don't talk?" Martinevans123 (talk) 23:21, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Help is on the way. Can we all agree that, once several uninvolved administrators have evaluated the results of this RfC and posted a decision, everybody involved will accept the consensus and abide by that decision? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

No. Prior discussions always allowed the DM as a source, and it appears a few did not "abide" by those discussions. Did you not know how many times the "Ban the Daily Mail" proposal has been made in the past? And "Ban Fox News" and the like? As some did not accept prior consensus, I fear saying "but this consensus is different" is not likely to be a Wikipedia policy. Collect (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

To be fair, the discussions each time they come up have gotton more and more towards the 'The Daily Mail is awful' because in the meantime the Mail has printed more crap, been sued etc. Its been going on for years. At some point (absent a severe editorial policy change) it was always going to tip over to the default position of 'this is not a reliable source for anything, even things we previously would have given it a pass on' as it starts to fail the basic reliability tests. I dont think anyone above can seriously argue it has a track record (in the last 20 years anyway) for fact-checking and accuracy. If the default position as a result of this discussion is 'The Daily Mail should not be used without explicit justification' it would make the encyclopedia a better place. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:41, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Collect: So, you're saying you're not willing to abide by consensus if you don't agree with it? Don't take this the wrong way, but we generally indef block those types of editors (that's not a threat). I don't think that's what you meant, but you need to clarify if you want others to understand you. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:43, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I said nothing of the sort, kind person. Note that I find zero sources usable at all for "celebrity gossip" which is what many others agree with. As for using medical and scientific press releases, I provided a study pointing out that no newspaper really writes such articles on its own, and they all use press releases. And that essentially no newspapers proofread or fact check any of their own articles. Lastly, that the only egregious errors generally pointed out are in headlines, and we should bar headlines as being used to assert that any claim is made within an article from any source. In short, that the proper finding should be "No Celebrity Gossip. No Headlines" in Wikipedia sourcing. This answers all the issues about the Daily Mail, and a lot of other problematic claims. Collect (talk) 14:58, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Accurate or not, you know on a realistic level no proposal to ban celebrity gossip is going to pass. (The headlines one can probably be put in guidance however) Too many editors enjoy stalking updating their fave celeb. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I said nothing of the sort, kind person. Actually, you did. Guy asked if everyone will abide by consensus and you answered "No." That being said, I accept that you didn't mean you will not abide by consensus, though you still haven't explained your answer in a way that makes sense. I understand what your argument is above, though I find a few problems with it. For example, you said "no newspapers proofread or fact check any of their own articles." and that is just plainly false. One of the criteria for news sources is that the outlet have a reputation for proofreading and fact checking their articles. It's what an Editor's job is, in those places. Now, I understand this is true for press releases, but it's false for most news articles. I agree with what you are saying about celebrity gossip, unless the gossip is relevant and can be cited to something more reliable that "a good reporter's private source". I also agree with what you said about headlines, although again with the caveat that headlines can be used to inform questions of focus and tone we may have about the article, which is more of a meta-concern. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:34, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Um - I fear you have some level of comprehension difficulty. I never said I was not going to abide by consensus - I have abided by the slew of consensi in the past about the Daily Mail. I pointed out that there is no history of those seeking once again to ban the DM of abiding by prior consensus. And the sad fact is that "proofreader" and "fact checker" positions have long departed in this era when over 60% of newspaper jobs have disappeared and their focus is on internet clickbait. "Copy editors are being bought out or forced out; they are dying and not being replaced." Not to mention major newspapers with articles about "amphibious baseball pitchers" and the like. In 1912, the CSM reported that the Titanic passengers were all safe, and the ship "in tow." In 1916, the New York Times reported that the new president would be Charles Evans Hughes. In 2006, USAToday reported that all thirteen miners in the Sago Mine disaster wee safe. 12 died. On 2004, the NY Post reported that Kerry had chosen Gephardt as his running mate. But now computers with interesting ideas of their own are nothing compared to headline writers whose sole job is to attract readers. Total NYT employee count is only about 3,500. It was well over 5,000 only four years ago. More examples available on request. Collect (talk) 16:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

If you can't engage without insulting other editors, you're going to end up blocked.

I pointed out that Guy asked a question. A question to which you responded "No." There's no level of comprehension difficulty that would allow me to operate a computer and yet still not understand that. If you weren't answering his question, but saying "no" in response to something else you should have made it clear what you were responding to, instead of the yes/no question that immediately preceded you stating "No". If you weren't responding to Guy at all, you should have indented your comment appropriately and done something (like quoting or summarizing whatever you were responding to) to indicate to what you were responding. Don't think for one second that the fact that your comment was poorly worded reflects poorly upon any other editor here, and don't think for one second that gives you license to hurl childish insults.

I'm not responding to the rest of your rant because I've responded to it below. But I will say that if you think that citing a handful of mistakes makes all news media inaccurate by definition, you probably have no business getting involved in discussions like these. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I apologize if you feel I insulted you. Guy asked: "Can we all agree that, once several uninvolved administrators have evaluated the results of this RfC and posted a decision, everybody involved will accept the consensus and abide by that decision?"

I did not say "Collect will not abide by consensus" at all. I stated that experience here shows that such a prognostication about "everyone else" is not of much value. I trust you see where the misreading might have occurred?

And the fact that a scientific study showed errors in 60% of articles including The Times and The Guardian does show that "fact checking" is not done even for those journals. And that study was on full articles, not headlines. Collect (talk) 16:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I didn't "feel" insulted, I'd have to care what you think for that. But you blatantly obviously accused me of being stupid, so (unless you're once again meaning apparently the exact opposite of what you said) it's pretty damn clear you meant to.

I did not say "Collect will not abide by consensus" at all. That's right. You said "No." Directly after the question was asked. If you read the question, you might notice it's a yes or no question. I really don't understand what's so difficult about saying "Okay, I misspoke. I didn't mean that." I did it myself, just at the bottom of this thread.

As to the newspaper thing, unless you can prove that "60% don't fact check" is the same thing as "100% don't fact check" then once again: I've already addressed that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually there is fairly credible evidence that isnt the case anymore. A lot of print newspapers have eliminated their factchecking positions/staff. So while basic 'is this spelled correctly' proofreading is done, factual proofreading is not. Or at least, not by dedicated staff members. 'Editors' these days are not the editors of yore. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I should have been more specific: It was the "no newspapers" part that I was disagreeing with. If it said "most newspapers" I'd be in agreement. And yes, things were better back in the day. God, I'm old... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Michael Marshall is touring with a talk on bad PR which identifies a lot of the reasons for this RfC, and why the situation has changed in recent years. Mail staffers have to turn out more stories per day than average for all newspapers, they tend to be young, in their first job in the industry, and they only stay a couple of years before moving on to a less awful job. The PR agencies know all of this so spoon feed them (and all journalists, but them especially) copy written in the house style. The rule of thumb is: if a company name is mentioned in the fourth paragraph, that company probably paid for the story. Mail staffers, especially, are harangued to meet targets, and pushing through a press release has pretty much no negative consequences, whereas not getting enough stories out, does. The Mail Online publishes more articles every day than any other newspaper website. It's clickbait farming, basically, and the fuel is PR (and of course the sidebar of shame). Guy (Help!) 17:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

That appears to sum up your position - but how do you feel about the statistics that all of the newspapers use press releases, often with minor rewriting? Oughtn't we bar The Times and The Guardian for doing what is objectionable at the Daily Mail? I fear I find the logic inherent in this RfC applies equally to all media, and any article which is likely to have come from any Press Release should be barred. I still abide by my suggestion that zero sources are "reliable" for celebrity gossip, and that headlines be estopped from being used for claims of what an article itself claims. This would keep out a lot of Daily Mail cites, and also cites from any media providing "celebrity gossip", stop the practice of using "multiple cites" which clearly derive from the same press release, and the use of headlines as supporting stronger claims than the body of an article supports. Fair enough? Collect (talk) 17:44, 6 February 2017 (UTC)