Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/09/wikipedia-policy-declares-the.html
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Now someone please tell FaceBook users to do the same.
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Well, it’s a fine start.
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How on Earth was it ever considered suitable for citation in the first place?!
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The same needs to be done with the “research” produced by public policy think-tanks.
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Now if only wikipedia could be declared to be unsuited for use in citations.
Are they still banning certain women from editing feminist related articles because their community has been infested by gamergaters?
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As of last I checked, they haven’t fixed their misogynistic behavior and culture especially as it relates to that. I have an absolutely infuriating and not-so-long-ago source I can share on the topic this evening.
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Another group of editors can overturn this at any point in the future, so there’s really nothing to be so happy about. Consider that it was a reliable source from 2004 until today.
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I approve of this measure, but I can’t say I can recall hearing anything like it before, and it makes me concerned about what might follow.
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What might follow is this. All UK newspapers and news magazines to be counted as unreliable, except for Private Eye.
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Wikipedia has a secret unofficial list of “reliable sources”, which includes most of the corporate mainstream media. Anything they print is laundered into statements of fact in Wikipedia, even when they have a record of fake news on certain topics. For example, Iraq WMDs and the recent baseless nonsense about armies of Russian trolls swinging the election.
It would be progress if this list is exposed.
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Could you please cite your source(s)?
Thanks.
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Amusing to see Dan Hodges (Mail on Sunday writer) on Twitter right now. Not a happy bunny.
Wikipedia not thinking that the Mail is vey reliable is equated to Trumpian FAKE NEWS!
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I’m not really seeing the problem here. 
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There is no secret list. It used to be that something needed to be proven reliable (has a reputation for fact checking, is considered serious by other newspapers, etc). Over the years that eroded and now practically everything is considered reliable “for the author’s opinion” and the burden of proof is to show it isn’t. Wikipedia is shit.
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[Goes and looks] Oooh, yeah. He’s losing the argument big time over there
And “proof” now means “consensus”, which is determined by a vote of anon handles. Then Wikipedia wonders why it can’t get academics to contribute material.
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I thought it was, at least in the context of UK universities.
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Wikipedia is indeed a numbers game. As little as two people can dictate what an article says since “consensus” trumps all. That’s not new. What is (relatively) new is what is considered reliable now (almost everything, unless a big enough group objects) compared to what used to be (a relatively small number of sources a big enough group supported).
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