David Gerard comes for the critics

[Kraken]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... lm_reviews

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... le_sources

David Gerard has stirred up another hornet's nest in his crusade against "trash" sources. He has this rather curious line of argument that the due weight of a critic's opinion derives from the platform not the critic.

In other words, if they didn't pick one of his chosen reliable sources, their opinion isn't required to ensure Wikipedia is presenting a neutral view of whatever is being reviewed. A film, a book, whatever.

I know Wikipedia likes to pretend differently, but in the real world, experts can and do make commercial decisions in their own best interests. And so they will quite often choose a source Gerard hates. With a passion.

The market self regulates. You don't get the most respected opinions in the trashiest of sources, sure. But between those two extremes, is a wealth of variety. And Gerard absolutely hates it. You can feel it. It's messianical.

For a notable critic (and I think, I think, Wikipedia has a means to determine if a critic is notable), then it shouldn't matter if they wrote their review on a napkin in a toilet. If it exists, was signed and was preserved for eternity, then why wouldn't you include it?

Isn't this the entire basis of WP:SPS? Unsurprisingly, somewhere in his warped logic I swear Gerard even contrived to argue Wikipedia isn't in the business of giving air time to experts if all they did was write in their own blog.

He tries all sorts of weak sauce to get around his basic problem - the weight is from who not where. He tries to introduce the concept of a "slightly" notable critic, as if that's somehow a thing. He even goes as far as invoking BLP too, as if a reviewer saying something bad about a performance in a supposedly unreliable source would be a BLP issue. Truly desperate stuff.

I don't know how he gets away with it. Well I do, he just ignores his fellow editors, and, well, surprisingly, on Wikipedia that is literally all it takes.

[Háčky]

If a reliable source hasn’t fact-checked it, how do we know it’s a real opinion?

[MrErnie]

Maybe the goal should have been truth, not verification.

[Kraken]

One of the worst things you can do as a Wikipedia Administrator is abuse the powerful protection of the BLP policy in pursuit of your own agenda.

Option 3 or Option 4. There is no need to make a carveout for the New York Post. The Post's entertainment coverage is part of it being a gossip tabloid at absolute best. This is not a paper of quality or renown. Given that so much of its entertainment coverage is about living persons, and the previous RFC noted the Post's fondness for fabrication, allowing any such carveout is likely to be a WP:BLP danger. There's a consistent flow of fresh BLP-violating trash from the Post, especially from Page Six but also from the rest of the paper/site. I would suggest the safest thing is to deprecate its entertainment coverage entirely. At the least, we must note that the New York Post must not be used for any statement concerning living persons - David Gerard (talk) 22:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

You would barely even be able to tell from the above that the genesis of this view was people objecting to Gerard removing opinions of notable critics merely because they come from the Post.

This is why Wikipedia desperately needs to address its problem with legacy Administrators. Can you imagine the laughter if Gerard tried to advance this line of argument at RfA today?

Q1. Why do you want to be an Administrator?

A. So I can invoke BLP to remove film reviews from Wikipedia.

The expectations of the community have changed so much, in large part becuase things like BLP are quite rightly very powerful tools in an Admin's locker, it is quite entertaining indeed to see what an easy ride Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/David Gerard (T-H-L) really was.

[The Garbage Scow]

The expectations of the community have changed so much, in large part becuase things like BLP are quite rightly very powerful tools in an Admin's locker, it is quite entertaining indeed to see what an easy ride Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/David Gerard (T-H-L) really was.

A 2004 RfA. What a delightful visit to the stone age. And recommended by Theresa Knott (another stone ager who hasn't edited in almost 10 years now).

[eppur si muove]

A 2004 RfA. What a delightful visit to the stone age. And recommended by Theresa Knott (another stone ager who hasn't edited in almost 10 years now).

And both were connected with the first incarnation of WMUK.

[tarantino]

A 2004 RfA. What a delightful visit to the stone age. And recommended by Theresa Knott (another stone ager who hasn't edited in almost 10 years now).

And both were connected with the first incarnation of WMUK.

As was FT2, who's still plugging away. He passed his RFA in 2007, in spite of six Poetlister socks voting oppose. FT2 got his revenge later, though.

[Kraken]

The expectations of the community have changed so much, in large part becuase things like BLP are quite rightly very powerful tools in an Admin's locker, it is quite entertaining indeed to see what an easy ride Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/David Gerard (T-H-L) really was.

A 2004 RfA. What a delightful visit to the stone age. And recommended by Theresa Knott (another stone ager who hasn't edited in almost 10 years now).

I was surprised to see around a third of those voting are still around (albeit if you define around as having made at least one edit in the last calendar year). At least one person is still making over a thousand edits a year, but that only stood out because most aren't. Only one has died, which feels low, and surprisingly few (two?) have subsequently been blocked (socking).