Well we’re sure this won’t go down well with the Daily Mail, but Wikipedia has apparently banned anyone from using the paper or website as a source.
PUBLIC ANGER: A vigil outside the Daily Mail offices in 2013 after the death of trans teacher, Lucy Meadows.
Wikipedia has marked The Daily Mail as an “unreliable” source for stories and has banned its thousands of volunteer contributors from using the paper or the Mail Online as a source for facts after its volunteers decided that the 120-year-old newspaper was “unreliable” and that other sources should be cited. The editorial department of the world’s biggest online encyclopaedia have decreed that all references from the paper should be scrubbed and replaced by other sources. The Mail Online is one of the world’s most successful newspaper websites.
In a statement, the editors wrote,
“Based on the requests for comments section [on the reliable sources noticeboard], volunteer editors on English Wikipedia have come to a consensus that the Daily Mail is ‘generally unreliable and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist’.
“This means that the Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a ‘reliable source’ on English Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are encouraged to change existing citations to the Daily Mail to another source deemed reliable by the community. This is consistent with how Wikipedia editors evaluate and use media outlets in general – with common sense and caution.”
It did, however, note that historically the DM had been noted as a reliable source, saying,
The Daily Mail may have been more reliable historically, and it could make sense to cite it as a primary source if it is the subject of discussion. These seem to be good points, but should come up very rarely. Editors are encouraged to discuss with each other and apply common sense in these cases.
Wikipedia went online in 2001 and was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It has become one of the world’s most popular websites. It works by allowing anyone to make edits. This can sometimes lead to false entries or vandalism of pages. It is policed by thousands of volunteers who regularly delete and reedit deliberate and accidental errors.
