Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-11-29/Op-Ed: Difference between revisions

← Back to Op-Ed

Discuss this story

BTW, for those interested, WP:UPSD will highlight whenever most of these sources are cited. There are some exceptions: Life News, Bill O'Reilly, The Right Scoop, The Daily Signal and The American Spectator, aren't highlighted because it's either not immediately obvious that they are unreliable (you can be partisan without inventing things for example), or lack an WP:RSN consensus. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:44, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can I tag this article with {{Globalise}}? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, but if you want to do the same type of thing with the UK, or France, or Germany, or ... Please just submit an article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:53, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Very nicely written Newslinger, I've been thinking about this very thing a lot recently. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Well written and well argued. Well done NS! Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Thank you for this story. I was arguing with my (more conservative) dad about this earlier, and this is a very cogent explanation. Sincerely, Ovinus (talk) 21:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

While this very well-written article definitely defeats the right-wing talking point about everything being biased against them, we might need to discuss how your research also implicates Wikipedia in general for having a bias which leans right. Why would that be? Is it our demographic base? Is it that the insistence on reliability and established sources also contains within it an implicit bias towards the status quo, and thus more conservative basis? Food for thought. Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 21:54, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of comparing the total number of deprecated left-leaning and right-leaning sources, I think it would be more meaningful to compare the threshold of reliability below which sources may be deprecated. The Daily Mail and Breitbart are deprecated with, respectively, reliability scores of 31.17 and 28.60. Has the same threshold been applied when deprecating left-leaning sources? The only deprecated left-leaning source, Occupy Democrats, has a reliability score of 21.59, and a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard decided against deprecating AlterNet, which has a reliability score of 23.16. So the threshold for deprecating left-leaning sources appears to be much stricter. Vitreous humour (talk) 23:54, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Vitreous humour: the issue usually reflect actual need to take a position on specific sources. For example WorldTruth.TV at 7.0 and NewsPunch at 13.9 are completely unmentioned at WP:RSN, because no one are trying to use them. WP:RSN reacts to usage (both in how widespread usage is, and the nature of said usage) in Wikipedia, it does not anticipate it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another example: according to [1], Jezebel (website) is a "marginally reliable" source, meaning it may or may not be used depending on the context. According to that page Jezebel has been discussed at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard twice, and that was the conclusion of those discussions. Jezebel has a reliability score of 26.25, lower than both The Daily Mail and Breitbart. Why did the Reliable Sources noticeboard decide that Jezebel may be used as a source, even though it is less reliable than deprecated right-leaning sources? Vitreous humour (talk) 00:38, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify my point, I'm saying that this unequal threshold can't be explained by the fact that some sources escape deprecation by never being challenged. All of the sources I mentioned (The Daily Mail, Breitbart, AlterNet and Jezebel) have been challenged at RSN, and so have other sources of about the same reliability such as CounterPunch and The Daily Kos. But only the right-leaning sources are deprecated as a result of those challenges, despite being slightly more reliable than the other sources I mentioned. Vitreous humour (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If I would like to notice something, most far-right sources are the most loud in declaring Wikipedia is biased. SMB99thx my edits! 00:34, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]