Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

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Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:49 pm

This is my attempt to repackage a core element of a wider ranging piece published on Medium by The Devil.

In February 2017, a piece in Politico about the website The Gateway Pundit described it thusly....
It was a banner moment for the decade-old website, known for reporting obvious hoaxes as legitimate news.......the site has published a number of obviously false stories, often deleting the posts after their source material is exposed as a parody, a hoax or just plain wrong.
Just so we're clear, Politico are talking about Gateway Pundit there, not Wikipedia.

On 23 February 2017, the Wikipedia editor Snooganssnoogans (T-C-L) added the following to the introduction of the Wikipedia article for The Gateway Pundit (T-H-L).....
The website is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.[7][8][9][10][11]
Reference [7] was the Politico piece. References [8] to [11], while providing examples, are careful not to make blanket judgements.

On 16 August 2017 the Beckman Klein Centre (T-H-L) published a study, Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Its executive summary contains the following....
These sites do not necessarily all engage in misleading or false reporting, but they are clearly highly partisan. In this group, Gateway Pundit is in a class of its own, known for “publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.”
Despite their use of quotation marks, according to TDA the report's source of this information was apparently the Politico piece, which of course doesn't say those exact words Wikipedia does.

Despite the pretty long summary, this particular quote seemed attractive enough to make it into the brief news coverage of the study in Mother Jones on the day.

Having had a week to cogitate on it, in their "Analysis", The Washington Post's coverage of the study also similarly focused in on this aspect.....
Fourth on the list of most-shared sources among Trump supporters on Twitter was Gateway Pundit, a site especially notorious for trafficking in hoaxes and falsehoods.
They evidently liked it so much, it appeared in subsequent pieces in October 2017, suitably condensed to
known for trafficking in falsehoods (1)(2)
Ever diligent, Snoog of course added these two pieces to the list of references supposedly backing his original Wikipedia edit, almost as soon as they appeared. (1)(2)

So, in conclusion, absent any other sources being found (and TDA seems to have been thorough), this mysterious Snoog fella seems to have quite deliberately used his knowledge of the slack practices of Wikipedia and those who use it, to turn what was a single opinion of one Politico journalist, into the settled view of a number reliable sources, which he has then in turn used to back up his original edit. This process is known as citogenisis - the use of Wikipedia to turn invented information into reliably sourced information, although in this case it's not so much invention, as misrepresentation.

Are their alternative explanations? Of course.....

1. Snoog might not have even been aware that his original edit represented a gross misuse of sources(*). It may be what they like to term, a "good faith" error. A simple check of his editing history, easily disproves that theory.

2. The precise match of Snoog's wording to that of the Beckman Klein Centre's study could just be a terrible coincidence. I'm no expert by any means, and I'm well aware the human mind handles such perceptions badly, but it seems at least unlikely, especially given Wikipedia's ubiquity.

3. The WaPo's view of what GP is known for, it being not an exact match to Snoog's wording, could be based on their own diligent research, and not the Snoog tainted summary of the Beckman Klein Centre's study. But given the timing of their reports, and what we know about the pressures journalists operate under today, it seems much more likely Snoog was the ultimate source.

At time of writing, Snoog's edit is still visible as the current version of that article's introduction, and he is still an active editor, untroubled by the cold dead hand of any Wikipedia administrator, the people who are, nominally at least, charged with upholding Wikipedia policy through the use of force (anyone can theoretically do so through the use of mere words, and in some cases if afforded due privelage, by undoing/changing edits)

* - For those wondering, according to actual Wikipedia policy, given he only had the one source to hand to support his text, here's what Snoog's original edit should have looked like....
According to Politico, The Gateway Pundit is "known for reporting obvious hoaxes as legitimate news."
That is, if consensus was found that the opinion of this one journalist was significant enough to include at all. And rather than include it in the introduction, it should have been included in the main article text, under a suitably titled section, like "Reception", so as to not give it undue prominence.

Only if these "known for" type views become widespread in multiple reliable sources, can the sort of unqualified/unattributed edit Snoog made, be made. And it can only be made in the introduction, if that itself summarises greater detail surrounding these views already provided in the main article. If there's evident disagreement in sources, it is of course more complicated. Needless to say, as a mere Wikipedia editor, Snoog isn't meant to have any direct hand in that process, he is meant to be a passive element, the mere scribe of known history.

Being mere examples, the rest of his references should have only been included if it was deemed by consensus to be important to describe the specific incidents they report on, in the main body of the article. The typical way you judge that is if those examples have been mentioned in other sources as examples, rather than just first hand reporting. Otherwise, essentially, Wikipedia would just be a repository of news reporting merely mentioning the website, which policy is quite explicit about - "Wikipedia is not the news". Editorial judgement is crucial here, the goal being to ensure Wikipedia's use of such examples doesn't misrepresent the totality of views across all reliable sources, or give undue prominence to underreported incidents.

This is of course all theoretical - most editors on Wikipedia ignore these policies and their practices are closer to what Snoog does.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:25 pm

There's a small problem with the theory that Wikipedia was the source of the "smear". Gateway Pundit was already being described as "being known for spreading hoaxes" (or variations on the phrasing) by multiple sources prior to Snoogans' edit. In addition to the Politico article, there are:

WaPo: Headline: Blog known for spreading hoaxes says it will have correspondent in Trump White House.

NYT:
The Gateway Pundit, a provocative conservative blog, gained notice last year for its fervent pro-Trump coverage and its penchant for promoting false rumors about voter fraud and Hillary Clinton’s health that rocketed around right-wing websites.
Snopes.com has a category tagged "Gateway Pundit". The earliest entry goes back to November 2016, and calls it a "disreputable website" in the context of declaring a claim made by it "False".

Bottom line: the proposition "The Gateway Pundit spreads hoaxes and false rumors, and is known for doing so" is true. The most which can be alleged is that others have been lazily cribbing something true from Wikipedia. That's a problem of lazy journalism, not Wikipedia.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:49 pm

That WaPo piece, which only predates Snoog's edit by a month, is written like a personal opinion blog, not a news story. The author is essentially making the case for why GT should be known for its "record of reckless unreliability", as opposed to reporting this as if it were the paper's settled view as a reliable source. As such, as per all the relevant Wikipedia policies governing such things, I'd be ultra-wary of using it to source Snoog's edit, as written. Perhaps the reason he didn't, was for exactly that reason? He probably recognised he'd have to at the very least give attribution, if he was able to use it at all.

The NYT piece is no different to the other example references Snoog gave - it steers well clear of going so far as to claim what Snoog's edit claims.

Snopes seems completely irrelevant, they are either considered completely unreliable for Wikipedia's purposes, or only ever usable as a source for those own clearly attributed opinion. If you know different, I'd appreciate proof (and obviously, not just examples of its usage as such).

As such, we still appear to be lacking a source which predates Snoog's edit, which in Wikipedia terms, would show what he added, and more specifically how he wrote it, to be "true".

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:46 pm

Dude, what are you smoking? The WaPo article has "news" in the URL. It's not an op-ed. Two sources (WaPo and Politico) literally say that it is known for promoting hoaxes. Others use different wording, with the same general idea. Here's an article from the UK Independent (prior to Snoog's edit). Here's the first paragraph:
Amid the breaking news and fake news, Donald Trump’s administration has granted press credentials to an outspoken conservative news site that has promoted false rumours about Hillary Clinton’s health and voter fraud.
You can finesse it by saying that they all literally didn't write exactly "is known for promoting hoaxes and false rumors". Maybe the old news orgs were guarding their privileges against an upstart. Yeah, sure, whatever.

Leave the sources aside, just use your eyes and your brain. Here's an example of what Gateway Pundit wrote about Hillary Clinton:
As an example, during the primary season in 2016 Hillary had some sort of seizure or attack during a stop at a coffee shop.
This was after an AP reporter who was there specifically wrote an article criticizing Gateway Pundit. Obviously Gateway Pundit dismissed the reporter as a "hack" and said that she's in on the ruse.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Mon Feb 12, 2018 5:10 pm

Kingsindian wrote:Dude, what are you smoking? The WaPo article has "news" in the URL. It's not an op-ed.
What are you smoking to be assuming these are better signs than the actual content of the piece?
Kingsindian wrote:Two sources (WaPo and Politico) literally say that it is known for promoting hoaxes.
It's one, pending a better explanation from you as to why the WaPo piece would be usable to support Snoog's edit.
Kingsindian wrote:Others use different wording, with the same general idea. Here's an article from the UK Independent (prior to Snoog's edit). Here's the first paragraph:
Amid the breaking news and fake news, Donald Trump’s administration has granted press credentials to an outspoken conservative news site that has promoted false rumours about Hillary Clinton’s health and voter fraud.
You can finesse it by saying that they all literally didn't write exactly "is known for promoting hoaxes and false rumors". Maybe the old news orgs were guarding their privileges against an upstart. Yeah, sure, whatever.
This isn't finesse. There is a clear and obvious difference between a source only being prepared to give examples and state they are examples, and one prepared to give a blanket "known for" type statement.

If you don't believe me, ask yourself why, given how many hoaxes Wikipedia has helped distribute, how many times it has been successfully vandalised, that you never see statements like "Wikipedia, the encyclopedia known for spreading falsehoods and hoaxes, was today....". That is either the truth, and it's being hidden from us by the liberal media, or it is simply more accurate (and fair) to say that while those are oft-noted faults, what Wikipedia is "known for" is being a user created encyclopedia.
Kingsindian wrote:Leave the sources aside, just use your eyes and your brain. .
Sorry dude, you appear to have missed the part where the entire point of this thread is to highlight what happens when people supplant their own personal judgements and opinions, for those of reliable sources. It really doesn't matter what either of us think is the truth here.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Mon Feb 12, 2018 5:40 pm

So, an article by a WaPo reporter dealing specifically with politics and the media, with the headline "Blog known for spreading hoaxes says it will have a correspondent in Trump White House", talking about the various hoaxes the site spreads, is not a usable source for a sentence claiming that the site is known for spreading hoaxes?

Tell you what. I'll add the source to the WP article. Let's see if it stays in. Care to take a bet on the outcome?

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Poetlister » Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:22 pm

Look, Kingsindian, WaPo is known to be a lefty tabloid with a thing against Trump and other Republicans. Consider its coverage of events at the Watergate Hotel in the 1970s. It can't possibly be used as a source for anything about Trump or indeed American politics in general. :sarcasm:
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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:30 am

Kingsindian wrote:So, an article by a WaPo reporter dealing specifically with politics and the media, with the headline "Blog known for spreading hoaxes says it will have a correspondent in Trump White House", talking about the various hoaxes the site spreads, is not a usable source for a sentence claiming that the site is known for spreading hoaxes?
When are you going to address the basic point which most editors would address here, namely the content of the piece? It reads like opinion, not news. Typically that is a sign it is meant as opinion, not news. The first line, the last line, and lots of the words in the middle, all practically scream to the reader, this is a blog post, not a news article. I phrase a lot of my posts in exactly this way, yet I think nobody here would flatter me with the compliment that they read like news pieces, as if I'm speaking for the news desk of Wikipediocracy. If you genuinely don't see the difference, I am amazed, but not altogether surprised.
Kingsindian wrote:Tell you what. I'll add the source to the WP article. Let's see if it stays in. Care to take a bet on the outcome?
You don't appear to have understood the point that I am making. Wikipedia doesn't work. So if you add this piece, and it stays, that is just more proof Wikipedians don't know what they're doing. I would be genuinely surprised if it was removed, and the remover wasn't someone we know reads here.

Maybe if I phrase it this way, you would understand. Somewhere buried in the depths of its bureaucracy, Wikipedia has a page which says something like, if proposed text says something like "known for", then essentially it implies, if not stating outright, that Wikipedians should have absolutely have no trouble at all finding multiple reliable sources that state this as an unqualified fact, either in this precise terms, or in essentially equivalent terms.

In other words, it should not be necessary to have to resort to opinion pieces or engage in original research, i.e. just listing sourced coverage of a bunch of examples and saying to the reader to use their eyes and look for themselves, to see the truth you so desperately want to force them to see. That's the thing with truth, even when dealing with pretty subjective issues like what things are "known for", it's usually pretty damn easy to source, word for word.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:07 am

For crying out loud. It took me a minute to find actual confirmation from the WaPo's own site that the section that piece is posted in, "The Fix", is their "politics blog". As such, in conjunction with its wording, it is inarguable that the purpose of the piece is to convey the author's opinion. Therefore, even though he is doing so as part of the WaPo, per estaboished policy, it does not entitle him to have his views carried in Wikipedia's voice without proper attribution.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Tue Feb 13, 2018 3:59 am

Do you even know WP:NEWSBLOG? The writer is a reporter for the WaPo specifically dealing with the media. Of course, you don't want to take me up on the bet, Wikipedia doesn't work. So why are you quoting its policies? Am I just supposed to take your word for it?

Of course, every source is just a "single source". How many "single sources" do you want? If the NYT saying "has a penchant for promoting false rumors" (penchant: noun. "a strong or habitual liking for something or tendency to do something.") doesn't qualify, then what is one to do? Since you arbitrarily disqualify everything which specifically doesn't say "is known for", I gave the best source saying it directly.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:09 am

Kingsindian wrote:Do you even know WP:NEWSBLOG? The writer is a reporter for the WaPo specifically dealing with the media.
Where do you think the idea that attributing opinion, even from reputable blogs, comes from?
Kingsindian wrote:Of course, you don't want to take me up on the bet, Wikipedia doesn't work. So why are you quoting its policies? Am I just supposed to take your word for it?
Wikipedia doesn't work largely because the editors don't follow the policies. Which policy allows Snoog to use references 8 to 11 to support his edit?
Kingsindian wrote:Of course, every source is just a "single source". How many "single sources" do you want?
More than one at the very least.....and if you don't know how many you really need to support an idea that something is "known for" something, you really do need to find a different hobby.
Kingsindian wrote:If the NYT saying "has a penchant for promoting false rumors" (penchant: noun. "a strong or habitual liking for something or tendency to do something.") doesn't qualify, then what is one to do?
You could start by not cutting off that quote where you did. I already told you what that piece is, don't pretend like you don't know. The fact you had to cut that quote shows you know you screwed up.
Kingsindian wrote:Since you arbitrarily disqualify everything which specifically doesn't say "is known for", I gave the best source saying it directly.
There's nothing arbitrary about excluding sources if they don't actually say the words, or an equivalent form, or excluding ones which cannot be used without attribution.

This isn't a difficult concept Kingsindian. Why can't you accept that if you're finding it this hard to find appropriate sources, maybe it's not as true as you thought? The claim is "known for". That implies it has been committed to print by multiple reliable sources, unless you have a different idea of what knowledge is and how it is disseminated.

If you've got nothing new to say in the next post, please spare me the time of answering it, this is becoming repetitive.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Tue Feb 13, 2018 6:00 am

The Politico piece is just the opinion of a Politico reporter. The WaPo piece is also just the opinion of a WaPo reporter. We can dismiss the NYT because they didn't use the exact phrase "is known for". The UK Independent source, the first paragraph of which talks about the reputation of the blog, we can also dismiss. Snopes.com, saying that it is a "disreputable site" is unreliable.

Luckily, when the Gateway Pundit was given press credentials by the White House, it itself did a roundup of the multiple media outlets which commented on the unusual decision. As the self-declared aim of the Gateway Pundit was to do a "little trolling of the media", this was perfectly understandable. Among the sources listed is this Fox News story (via the Tribune Wire Service):
The site has been dubbed a “purveyor of fake news,” even by conservative journalists.
Clearly, the reputation of the Gateway Pundit would have been excellent were it not for Wikipedia. I am indeed done with this thread.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Ming » Tue Feb 13, 2018 12:19 pm

Ming wandered over and took a look at GP, and lo and behold, it's just another rightist mouthpiece for inciting the base. Hillary is still a major threat to the nation, there's some deep conspiracy against Trump, and so forth, all loudly shouted to the rabble. Ming prefers to get Ming's news without hyperventilation, thank you, but in any case it's the sort of place where Ming wouldn't believe a word they said unless someone outside the circle of rightist mouthpieces repeated the story independently.

It's not hard to find evidence of GP's participation in news faking: this Snopes story was one click away from the very first Google hit on "gateway pundit hoax". The third hit is Politifact taking them down. There is a lot of fighting on WP about these characterizations, but however you want to go off about the precise sourcing, there's nothing the least inaccurate about them.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:01 pm

Kingsindian wrote:The Politico piece is just the opinion of a Politico reporter.
It's also an actual news story. As previously mentioned, I've no issue if Wikipedia wants to use them as the single appropriate source that has so far been found for Snoog's sweeping claim, as long as it is properly attributed, and not given undue prominence in the introduction. This is all standard Wikipedia policy.
Kingsindian wrote:The WaPo piece is also just the opinion of a WaPo reporter.
So tedious. I will take this as final admission of defeat in your attempt to prove this is not a straight up newsblog opinion piece, therefore inadmissible without attribution.
Kingsindian wrote:We can dismiss the NYT because they didn't use the exact phrase "is known for".
This isn't even close to what I've said about that piece. This reeks of desperation. That piece is no different to references 8 to 11 added by Snoog, in that it is simply listing one or two examples. Use of their full quote would have revealed that, as I already said but which you chose to misinterpret, seemingly deliberately.
Kingsindian wrote:The UK Independent source, the first paragraph of which talks about the reputation of the blog, we can also dismiss.
The reasoning being exactly the same as the NYT piece. You can either address it,
or ignore/misrepresent it. Clearly you choose the latter.
Kingsindian wrote:Snopes.com, saying that it is a "disreputable site" is unreliable.
I asked you to demonstrate Snopes.com is considered reliable by Wikipedia for these purposes. I can only presume you can't, therefore simply restating the claim as if repeating it makes it true, is rather pathetic. Snopes aren't the only people who do this btw, you could use Media Matters too if you wanted, if you thought these organisations are reliable sources for supporting this claim without attribution. These sites are effectively the Rotten Tomatoes of news - and I think you must surely know Wikipedia is obsessive about attribution in that area. Myself, in the face of all this analysis, I'm left wondering why the independent reliable news media is still seemingly so reluctant to say it the way Politico has. But it is not my place, or that of the Wikipedians, to view that as wrong and therefore supplant my view with that of the news media as a reliable source. That is Original Research, which I hope you understand (I can't seemingly assume anything with you on this evidence), is banned on Wikipedia.
Kingsindian wrote:Luckily, when the Gateway Pundit was given press credentials by the White House, it itself did a roundup of the multiple media outlets which commented on the unusual decision. As the self-declared aim of the Gateway Pundit was to do a "little trolling of the media", this was perfectly understandable.
And the relevance of this is what, exactly? I can understand why you would want to use this statement to support Snoog's edit, but I'm quite sure there's nobody who would accept that as a proposed edit, not even Snoog. Wikipedia is broken, but not that broken.
Kingsindian wrote:Among the sources listed is this Fox News story (via the Tribune Wire Service):
The site has been dubbed a “purveyor of fake news,” even by conservative journalists.
You're showing an amazingly inexperienced view of how the news works here. Or you're just flat out trying to deceive people. That Fox piece makes it clear the claim is not coming from the wire service, but is an opinion attributed to the conservative blog RedState, which is therefore unlikely to be a reliable source. They don't suddenly become reliable just because they're taking about outlets nominally on the same side, that's not how it works. It certainly isn't the case when providing the full headline would have shown people how incredibly innappropriate it would be to use it as an unattributed source in this context - "Gateway Pundit, Purveyor Of Fake News, Lashes Out At RedState For Calling Him Out"
Kingsindian wrote:Clearly, the reputation of the Gateway Pundit would have been excellent were it not for Wikipedia.
Clearly, if its reputation was how Wikipedia presents it, Wikipedia would have no trouble sourcing it correctly. What makes me laugh about you people, is that this is exactly what the great Jimmy Wales or Larry Sanger would say if you went to them seeking advice on this issue. As Larry has lamented and Jimmy is in denial about, alas, the inmates took over the asylum, and any old shit suffices these days. Even Snoog, a clear POV pusher, doesn't stoop to the level of argument that Wikipedia's policies don't matter if something just feels inherently true. Even though he is blatantly and quite deliberately ignoring them, he is at least trying to pretend to the ignorant masses that he is complying with the requirement that unattributed content on Wikipedia must be verifiable to sufficient reliable independent sources that genuinely support the text. Even better if shown to be coming from across the political spectrum or even outside of America, so as to reassure people this is the unbiased view. If Snoogs didn't at least try to make it look like he's playing by the rules, he likely wouldn't be able to (ab)use Wikipedia to achieve the things he has, fooling the likes of the BKC to seemingly lift his words verbatim, potentially affecting downstream coverage. No matter how much you personally dislike it, Wikipedians really don't just get to decide what the truth is, and chuck any old reference on a page to verify it. If that's your goal as an editor, go do it somewhere else. Or not. It's not like Wikipedia has the ability to stop you. We can only educate you, but if you won't be told,
so be it.
Kingsindian wrote:I am indeed done with this thread.
Thank Christ for that. I'm embarrassed for you. If it weren't for the fact you've thoroughly demonstrated the many faults with Wikipedia through this incredibly tedious and tortuous exercise, all stemming from the fact it allows complete amateurs to play at being encyclopedia writers, I would have been done with it a long time ago. I gave you every chance to prove you know what you're talking about, or even show that you understand the basic, incredibly basic, concepts at issue here.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:05 pm

Ming wrote:Ming wandered over and took a look at GP, and lo and behold, it's just another rightist mouthpiece for inciting the base. Hillary is still a major threat to the nation, there's some deep conspiracy against Trump, and so forth, all loudly shouted to the rabble. Ming prefers to get Ming's news without hyperventilation, thank you, but in any case it's the sort of place where Ming wouldn't believe a word they said unless someone outside the circle of rightist mouthpieces repeated the story independently.

It's not hard to find evidence of GP's participation in news faking: this Snopes story was one click away from the very first Google hit on "gateway pundit hoax". The third hit is Politifact taking them down. There is a lot of fighting on WP about these characterizations, but however you want to go off about the precise sourcing, there's nothing the least inaccurate about them.
Thankfully, the earnest beliefs, informed opinions or even research based conclusions of some bloke calling himself Ming on the internet, are not acceptable as a reliable source on Wikipedia, even with attribution.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Mason » Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:51 pm

Interestingly, I think you're both right. KI is answering the question posed by the thread headline "Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?" and his answer is essentially "no, it's not smeared, because it's described as 'publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes' and that's precisely what it does."

But the question is more subtle than that. Regardless of the fact that they are a fake news site, are they also known as one? Are the sources saying they are known as one sufficient for Wikipedia to say they are, in Wikipedia's editorial voice? Maybe, maybe not. That's the whole point of the "verifiability not truth" mantra. Even without considering the "citogenesis" and the political leanings of the editors involved, it's a legitimate issue for CN to raise.

Wikipedia policies require (in theory, at least) high sourcing standards before one can call a fake news site a fake news site in Wikipedia's voice. Were those standards met? That's the real question being posed, not whether GP is a junk site, which I don't see anyone disputing.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:16 pm

You have accurately summarised my position. Whether Kingsindian can say the same, remains to be seen.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Bezdomni » Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:27 pm

If Snoogs didn't at least try to make it look like he's playing by the rules, he likely wouldn't be able to (ab)use Wikipedia to achieve the things he has, fooling the likes of the BKC to seemingly lift his words verbatim, potentially affecting downstream coverage.
To make it look like the rules are being followed, the lead looks like this:
lede, Gateway Pundit wrote:The Gateway Pundit (TGP) is a right-wing,[2][3][4][5] far-right,[6][7][8] pro-Trump[9] website. It was founded after the United States presidential election in 2004,[10][11] according to its founder Jim Hoft, to "speak the truth" and to "expose the wickedness of the left".[12] The website is often linked to or cited by Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, as well as Drudge Report, Sarah Palin, and other well-known conservative people and media outlets.[13] The website is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.[14][5][15][16]

source
Critical readers don't need much acquaintance with Wikipedia to know there's something fishy about this page (as regards NPOV). The general pattern at WP is that the lead is sufficiently general that it should not require footnotes. Here, however, there are exceptional claims being made which require immediate support. It is more important to those pushing a POV to get "far right" and "right wing" into the lead than it is to avoid raising the readers' BS-o-meters. One might wonder, for example, if these "controversial" claims should be included before basic information like:
  • where the headquarters is located
  • what type of publication it is (web-only? print?)
  • readership numbers
  • number of employees
  • etc.
which might be more objectively demonstrable and not require footnoting in the lead in addition to footnoting in the body of the article.

I recall reading that even folks like Cirt have warned Snoog against reference stacking because it makes the tilting process so transparent to the reader. But here it's not just the footnotes... it's the cherry-picked "smoking gun" quote, the multiple epithets, the guilt by association, etc., etc. that really do harm to Wikipedia's reputation.

Now with regard to the Berkman Center (T-H-L) choosing the Snoog's words, that could be a whole 'nuther question...
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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:59 pm

Mason wrote:But the question is more subtle than that. Regardless of the fact that they are a fake news site, are they also known as one?
Actually, I answered this question in my first post:
Kingsindian wrote: Bottom line: the proposition "The Gateway Pundit spreads hoaxes and false rumors, and is known for doing so" is true.
Mason wrote:Are the sources saying they are known as one sufficient for Wikipedia to say they are, in Wikipedia's editorial voice?
Do you have a problem with any of the sources I mentioned? They all specifically address what you call the "subtle" question.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forget WP's arcane rules for a second. Investigate the following question yourself: "what was the general reputation of the Gateway Pundit circa, say, Feb 2017?". It takes 5 minutes to Google search; there's a truckload of material telling you that the sky is blue.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Tue Feb 13, 2018 6:03 pm

Never has a person failed to get something as much as you just have there Kingsindian. It shouldn't be this hard. That it is, really does explain why Wikipedia is so crap. It's like you're not even trying to understand what the issues are (so you could mount some convincing counter-argument where we could agree to disagree). It makes me feel like I'm tormenting some innocent child by having an argument with them on some grown up topic they couldn't possibly understand, when in reality, as was recently said by Zoloft, you're supposedly one of the most knowledgeable posters this forum has.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by MoldyHay » Tue Feb 13, 2018 6:57 pm

Ming wrote:Ming wandered over and took a look at GP, and lo and behold, it's just another rightist mouthpiece for inciting the base.
And the only reason the OP is still here is that all of the mods have him on ignore. Just another anti-American troll who is pissed off because he still doesn’t matter.
UPE on behalf of Big Popcorn :popcorn:

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:14 pm

No, the mods don't have CN on ignore.

I suggest that if you think he's a troll, instead of calling him names, you use the "foe" option yourself. Or you can ignore him the old-fashioned way (by not reading his posts).

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Poetlister » Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:56 pm

Kingsindian wrote:Or you can ignore him the old-fashioned way (by not reading his posts).
Where's the fun in that? It would mean that there would not be much to read on here.
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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Renée Bagslint » Tue Feb 13, 2018 9:03 pm

MoldyHay wrote:Just another anti-American troll who is pissed off because he still doesn’t matter.
What attitude towards the United States do you regard as a prerequisite for criticism of Wikipedia?

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Tue Feb 13, 2018 9:25 pm

Renée Bagslint wrote:What attitude towards the United States do you regard as a prerequisite for criticism of Wikipedia?
Well, I think you should at least not want to destroy it, since most (all?) the people who run this particular criticism site are American citizens and Wikimedia's headquarters are also in the US. (Though I suppose they could always move to India if things really go south.)

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Bezdomni » Wed Feb 14, 2018 1:21 am

This is a rather odd statement Jake... how is discussing the sources and methods of the Wikipedia gatekeepers going to destroy the US? Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Gateway Pundit is its traffic and the temporary access it had to the White House Press Corps given the quality of its production... so why not start by mentioning it was a blog founded in a St. Louis basement in 2004 by Jim Hoft, who earned his BS in biology from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa?1 Mention might be made early of the fact that it had grown its audience to up to a million hits a day during the 2016 elections. (This last factoid is already cited to the New Yorker article -- "Trolling the Press Corps" -- in the body of the text). Reasonable people could even agree that "right-wing" OR "far right" OR "conservative" should be in that first line.2

Once the origin stories (who, what, when, where) are out the way, then move on to more recent matters about why it has been notable in recent years (Hoft being close to Bannon (New Yorker article + the fact that Hoft has written for Breitbart since 2009, though that would need secondary sourcing), TGP being retweeted by Trump, their wrangling an invitation to join the White House Press Corps, their record of bogus stories, and so on)

Advantages: 1) Fans of TGP have nothing to complain about / edit-war over. 2) The reader's first impression will not be that the authors are *afraid* of the blog or are trying to control every word in the Knowledge Graph about it, because the article would be treating the subject like any other in its first lines: with encyclopedic rigor. 3) people who think perhaps you should have some experience in journalism might notice that something was odd about the blog...

Disadvantages: 1) The Ravi Loony Center-hold freaks don't get to control the placement of every word in the Knowledge Graph.

(This single disadvantage is, obviously, IMO, the reason the lead was written in such a pointed manner)


1 As a reference for this degree, a CUNY communications professor ( § ) included a (short) chapter and (soft ball) interview of Jim Hoft in his 2011 book Making it in the Political Blogosphere: ( § ).

2 Including both "far right" and "right wing" makes it sound more like name-calling than description. The CUNY professor used the term "conservative" in 2011. Also, in 2004 the blog would not have been pro-Trump.
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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Wed Feb 14, 2018 2:32 am

Bezdomni wrote:This is a rather odd statement Jake... how is discussing the sources and methods of the Wikipedia gatekeepers going to destroy the US?
That's a good question. Obviously it has nothing to do with the question originally asked, which itself was a distractionary strawman (i.e., stated as if one can't be an "anti-American troll" and a "Wikipedia critic" at the same time), but as you know, I'm always up for a challenge. First, of course, we have to define who the "Wikipedia gatekeepers" are. I'm assuming these are people who make it annoyingly difficult to insert pro-Trump right-wing propaganda into Wikipedia articles about subjects that are both directly and tangentially related to Trump Era™ sociopolitical issues. Based on that assumption, if their methods are consistently unsuccessful, the effects of exposing them (via discussion or some other form of dissemination) might prove deleterious to (actual) US interests because - since these are Wikipedians, after all - their arrogance and hubris naturally leads them to deny their lack of success, and unsophisticated rubes might be led to believe that these substandard sources and methods should be used simply because they say so. Whereas, if their methods work well most of the time, there could still be negative effects on (actual) US interests because enemies of the US might learn effective ways of defeating them, resulting in an unfortunate continuation of the current and ongoing political catastrophe. One might even add a third option, which is that silly, wisecracking opportunists with administrative rights will take advantage of these discussions to post overly verbose, and ultimately pointless, "walls of text" in which a question that was undoubtedly not meant to be answered in any kind of meaningful way, if at all, is instead analyzed and treated in a faux-serious manner in order to make the questioner feel bad about continuing a thread that should never have been started in the first place - due to its basic implication that a media entity that's clearly deserving of the worst kind of ill-treatment (in spite of Wikipedia's not-so-specific rules to the contrary) is somehow being "smeared" merely by having someone point out what it obviously does on a regular basis. This might not actually destroy the US, but in theory it could make things marginally less amusing for everyone other than myself.

Anyhoo, I've got the US Women's Hockey team game against "OAR" playing on the DVR, so I'm just going to make a big salad and hope for the best.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Zoloft » Wed Feb 14, 2018 5:16 am

Midsize Jake wrote:
Bezdomni wrote:This is a rather odd statement Jake... how is discussing the sources and methods of the Wikipedia gatekeepers going to destroy the US?
That's a good question. Obviously it has nothing to do with the question originally asked, which itself was a distractionary strawman (i.e., stated as if one can't be an "anti-American troll" and a "Wikipedia critic" at the same time), but as you know, I'm always up for a challenge. First, of course, we have to define who the "Wikipedia gatekeepers" are. I'm assuming these are people who make it annoyingly difficult to insert pro-Trump right-wing propaganda into Wikipedia articles about subjects that are both directly and tangentially related to Trump Era™ sociopolitical issues. Based on that assumption, if their methods are consistently unsuccessful, the effects of exposing them (via discussion or some other form of dissemination) might prove deleterious to (actual) US interests because - since these are Wikipedians, after all - their arrogance and hubris naturally leads them to deny their lack of success, and unsophisticated rubes might be led to believe that these substandard sources and methods should be used simply because they say so. Whereas, if their methods work well most of the time, there could still be negative effects on (actual) US interests because enemies of the US might learn effective ways of defeating them, resulting in an unfortunate continuation of the current and ongoing political catastrophe. One might even add a third option, which is that silly, wisecracking opportunists with administrative rights will take advantage of these discussions to post overly verbose, and ultimately pointless, "walls of text" in which a question that was undoubtedly not meant to be answered in any kind of meaningful way, if at all, is instead analyzed and treated in a faux-serious manner in order to make the questioner feel bad about continuing a thread that should never have been started in the first place - due to its basic implication that a media entity that's clearly deserving of the worst kind of ill-treatment (in spite of Wikipedia's not-so-specific rules to the contrary) is somehow being "smeared" merely by having someone point out what it obviously does on a regular basis. This might not actually destroy the US, but in theory it could make things marginally less amusing for everyone other than myself.

Anyhoo, I've got the US Women's Hockey team game against "OAR" playing on the DVR, so I'm just going to make a big salad and hope for the best.
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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Kingsindian » Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:12 am

Bezdomni wrote: Advantages: 1) Fans of TGP have nothing to complain about / edit-war over.
You think fans of TGP will take kindly to it being described as "spreading hoaxes" (or some variant of the phrase), if it was in the second paragraph instead of the first paragraph? I think that is very optimistic.

Btw, at least on my computer, the sentence "The website is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes." does not appear in the Google snippet.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Renée Bagslint » Wed Feb 14, 2018 7:37 am

Midsize Jake wrote:
Bezdomni wrote:This is a rather odd statement Jake... how is discussing the sources and methods of the Wikipedia gatekeepers going to destroy the US?
That's a good question. Obviously it has nothing to do with the question originally asked, which itself was a distractionary strawman (i.e., stated as if one can't be an "anti-American troll" and a "Wikipedia critic" at the same time), but as you know, I'm always up for a challenge.
We are obviously in agreement here. MH dismissed CN's posting on this Wikipedia criticism forum as unworthy of notice, apparently on the grounds that CN was anti-American, in an attempt to distract attention from the points CN was making about Wikipedia. I asked why his stance pro- or anti-American had anything to do with Wikipedia criticism, which is after all what we do here. Summary: MH appears to believe that an allegedly critical attitude towards the US disqualifies CN from being a Wikipedia critic -- MJ and I do not.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:39 am

Midsize Jake wrote:a thread that should never have been started in the first place - due to its basic implication that a media entity that's clearly deserving of the worst kind of ill-treatment (in spite of Wikipedia's not-so-specific rules to the contrary) is somehow being "smeared" merely by having someone point out what it obviously does on a regular basis.
Whoah, be careful there, up in your ivory tower. I hope I don't need to remind you what the Wikipedians would want to say about this website at Wikipediocracy (T-H-L), if they thought they could get away with it on the whole "sky is blue" defence.

I will make no apologies, none whatsoever, for starting threads which expose the fact that Wikipedia's rules don't mean shit, that their editors do whatever the fuck they want, and get away with it. Even when people expose it, they get away with it.

Whether this sentence can actually be properly sourced, and I deliberately left open the option that TDA might have missed sources that predated Snoog's edit, wasn't even the only issue raised in the thread. Arguably the only reason this is what people are focused on, is because that is precisely what the Wikipedian defending the honour of Wikipedia, wanted us to focus on.

The admitttedly poor choice of title aside (but people really should be smart enough to know the difference between headlines and stories), far more interesting to me is this idea that if someone wants to speed up the natural processs of reliable sources doing what they do, then careful manipulation of Wikipedia, is apparently a good way to achieve that.

This revelation of an apparent flaw in Wikipedia's oft-repeated defence against charges of merely being a smear factory, namely their reliance on WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, is a politically neutral one. The only reason it would seem to only benefit the left at this time, is the sheer numerical superiority of left biased editors on Wikipedia, conscious and unconscious. That can change, and probably quicker than anyone really appreciates. And if it does, the view from the ivory tower might not look so nice.

So you just back up there, chief. Mind your hats.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Ming » Wed Feb 14, 2018 12:21 pm

The thing is that, if you pick a source outside the rightist echo chamber, any mention of Gateway Pundit is going to be about how they spread around some untruth. Nobody is ever going to find some magisterial authority to say exactly the right incantation characterizing the place as what it is, because, in the real world, nobody needs to: any vaguely relevant Google search will produce almost nothing except news sources of all non-rightist stripes pointing out various sins of Gateway Pundit in this wise (well, and hits on the site itself making claims about liberals). Thus, the point is to keep WP from telling the truth by rules lawyering about sourcing-- or to use this as a vehicle for laying on WP.

The larger problem at the moment is that the situation is wildly asymmetrical. There are leftist crazy sources, but you have to hunt them down, and Ming has to say that Ming's many leftie acquaintances don't appeal to them, whereas it seems to Ming as though every rightist friend of Ming's is appealing to at least one manifestly mendacious if not crazy source; even at that the tendency to use Fox as the touchstone of truth is all too common. No doubt, Crowsnest, you're going to come back and dismiss this as Ming's opinion, but it is what Ming sees, and the appearance that everyone outside the rightist circle sees the same thing is telling.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Poetlister » Wed Feb 14, 2018 4:11 pm

Midsize Jake wrote:
Renée Bagslint wrote:What attitude towards the United States do you regard as a prerequisite for criticism of Wikipedia?
Well, I think you should at least not want to destroy it, since most (all?) the people who run this particular criticism site are American citizens and Wikimedia's headquarters are also in the US. (Though I suppose they could always move to India if things really go south.)
Isn't the location of WMF HQ a good reason to destroy the US, or at least the area where the HQ is? :sarcasm:
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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Thu Feb 15, 2018 10:36 am

Ming wrote:The thing is that, if you pick a source outside the rightist echo chamber, any mention of Gateway Pundit is going to be about how they spread around some untruth. Nobody is ever going to find some magisterial authority to say exactly the right incantation characterizing the place as what it is, because, in the real world, nobody needs to: any vaguely relevant Google search will produce almost nothing except news sources of all non-rightist stripes pointing out various sins of Gateway Pundit in this wise.
I think I've seen this definition of reality/truth before. It's the one that has fueled the alt-right up to now. You covered a lot of their favourite talking points here. While offering no hope for those seeking ways and means to defeat them.

There are, of course, far more convincing explanations for why this is what you see when you fire up Google and ignore results from the "right echo-chamber", than it being the objective truth of what GP is "known for" and journalists have just been too lazy to put this obvious truth in a form that Wikipedia can wiki-legally report as the obvious truth.

A respected journalist, if this is the truth they're seeking to convey as a result of a deep dive root through the sources and other evidence, would at least surely qualify such a fact by explaining the other reasons why GP is such a popular website with its readership, and even the White House. Or is it your view that what things are "known for" is reasonably constrained only to the people you want to define as being in the real world? I note the views of the fringe left presumably also fit into this definition of the real world, unless they're claiming GP is a front of the NWO.

What possible motive does the mainstream news media have, to do such a deep dive into the true essence of a site like Gateway Pundit? Examples suffice, for their purposes. Until the White House credential saga broke, there was no real need to do anything else, since GP was just one of hundreds of such sites. And once it broke, it appears due to the soap opera nature of the Trumpocalypse, they've had insufficient time to do this research, hence they hold fire and keep their reporting on point, in context, presented as mere examples or opinion, lest they be sued, or more likely, be asked to show their workings. Only Politico wants to nail their colors to the mast. Properly attributed, this is perfectly fine knowledge to add to Wikipedia. That's how adults, not raised on Google/Wikipedia, treat the truth.

As for the rest of the results, which many people lazily conflate as being news sites, what possible motive do the likes of Snopes have, to assess every story ever hosted by Gateway Pundit so as to deliver an objective truth? Their whole purpose is to debunk hoaxes. You go there looking for proof that sites listed there are "known for" hoaxes, well, your lazy ass is gonna find it. They have 100 pages, that's pages!, of results for the Daily Mail. Their motive is politics. Snoog's motive is politics. Your motive, is politics.

The only academic study presented here supporting this version of the truth, has been tainted by Snoogness. Are there any others? Have you even bothered to look? Did Uncle Google not help you find any, as you asked him what the truth of your reality is. I'm guessing not. Academia doesn't sound like it forms a big part of your daily digest of the truth.

The irony of your thesis, is that you're so stuck in this lazy left-right narrative, you're failing to appreciate that already in this thread we have seen sources like Fox and RedState presented as playing for your team on this specific issue. Are they doing this because they're noble warriors for the truth, and their weapon is the cold hard steel of reputable journalism? Your thesis would seem to compell us to say yes, even though we know they're not. I've already explained the far more convincing reason for that.

This is the flaw in your lazy assumptions about the nature of reality and the way the internet works, it puts the methodology and trustworthyness of respected news media on a par with RedState and some bloke called Snoog with his Wikipedia scribble pad. It also ignores things like commerical realities, bias and numerous other factors, up to and including the scourge of citogenisis. As such, it is unsustainable, a very very poor effort at justifying what is essentially an argument that Wikipedia need not follow its own rules, if smearing the alt-right. I could present a million examples of the respected news media not being so lazy in how they report the world. Your thesis cannot account for this.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Ming » Fri Feb 16, 2018 3:39 am

CrowsNest wrote:I think I've seen this definition of reality/truth before.
Using "definition" in that way is not a good sign for one's argument.
There are, of course, far more convincing explanations
Well, they are perhaps not more convincing to Ming, and while on some level it is a good thing to be convinced by one's own theses, the difference between that and mere rationalization is at best subtle.
...when you fire up Google and ignore results from the "right echo-chamber"
Ming has, over the years, had various rightist friends and acquaintances, and Ming long ago gave up hope of trying to get them to actually pay attention to anything outside their own circle. Ming knew about Steve Sailer long before he was well-known outside rightist circles. But really, there's only so much of it that Ming can stomach before Ming was read something that is both honest and sane. Ming knows the shape of these people's rants and rhetoric, and Ming does not see the point in reading it at length.
A respected journalist, if this is the truth they're seeking to convey as a result of a deep dive root through the sources and other evidence, would at least surely qualify such a fact by explaining the other reasons why GP is such a popular website with its readership, and even the White House.
Ming has read this already. But the word "respected" begs the question. You've already banked on not respecting anyone, because (after all) the RWEC is largely about not respecting outsiders.
Or is it your view that what things are "known for" is reasonably constrained only to the people you want to define as being in the real world?
In the real world, there are intransigent people who are immune to evidence or argument, and Ming is unmoved by them. "Known for" does not mean "everyone knows that."
I note the views of the fringe left presumably also fit into this definition of the real world, unless they're claiming GP is a front of the NWO.
... and Ming is as uninterested in their input.
What possible motive does the mainstream news media have, to do such a deep dive into the true essence of a site like Gateway Pundit?
Obviously, first of all, because they have had GP rubbed in their faces in the White House press room. It isn't as though they had to look for that. And prhaps you choose to admit that:
Until the White House credential saga broke, there was no real need to do anything else, since GP was just one of hundreds of such sites. And once it broke, it appears due to the soap opera nature of the Trumpocalypse, they've had insufficient time to do this research, hence they hold fire and keep their reporting on point, in context, presented as mere examples or opinion, lest they be sued, or more likely, be asked to show their workings.
Um, no. Never minding that this sounds like sheer speculation, Ming can find in the Atlantic archives references to GP's. um. problems back close to a decade if not more, which led to this National Review denuciad. There's only so much digging through these archives that Ming is willing to do in order to check your "facts", but it's hardly true that Politico is the only objector.

And after this, well, Ming lost interest again, especially when you had to resort to a sophomore's use of the word "assumptions" when it really doesn't apply. Things that Ming states flat out are not assumptions.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Fri Feb 16, 2018 6:16 am

From a forum-moderator's perspective, I don't think we really need to worry about the fact (or is it an alternative fact?) that left-wing folks are much more resistant to the idea that reality and truth - at least with respect to politics and such - are malleable, not to mention the idea that the internet tends to deprioritize (if not dismiss altogether) factual evidence in favor of whatever rabble-rousing opinion grabs the most attention and clicks. Nor should we necessarily blame them for not wanting to give in to the dilatory demands of right-wingers that they laboriously post extensive citation lists, studies and other research whenever they accuse an entity like the Gateway Pundit of regularly making shit up.

Our focus should be on how classic Wikipedian arrogance and amateurism makes the whole situation worse, etc., but in this case that's based on a subjective argument that a list of cites, even in combination with a separate article section on the issue, is insufficient evidence that Gateway Pundit regularly makes shit up. One's opinion on that is likely to be based mostly on where one stands politically anyway, and regardless, the right-wing folks are likely to respond with "they're suppressing our truth!" and "we're the real victims here!" no matter what happens.

Also, strictly as an aesthetics/readability/detail question, is it a good idea to have all those cites placed in a "cite bundle" and then have three other non-bundled cites follow the bundled one? It seems to me that for readers, this might diminish the perceived importance or relevance of the bundled cites, at least relative to the other three.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:18 am

Ming wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:I think I've seen this definition of reality/truth before.
Using "definition" in that way is not a good sign for one's argument.
There are, of course, far more convincing explanations
Well, they are perhaps not more convincing to Ming, and while on some level it is a good thing to be convinced by one's own theses, the difference between that and mere rationalization is at best subtle.
...when you fire up Google and ignore results from the "right echo-chamber"
Ming has, over the years, had various rightist friends and acquaintances, and Ming long ago gave up hope of trying to get them to actually pay attention to anything outside their own circle. Ming knew about Steve Sailer long before he was well-known outside rightist circles. But really, there's only so much of it that Ming can stomach before Ming was read something that is both honest and sane. Ming knows the shape of these people's rants and rhetoric, and Ming does not see the point in reading it at length.
A respected journalist, if this is the truth they're seeking to convey as a result of a deep dive root through the sources and other evidence, would at least surely qualify such a fact by explaining the other reasons why GP is such a popular website with its readership, and even the White House.
Ming has read this already. But the word "respected" begs the question. You've already banked on not respecting anyone, because (after all) the RWEC is largely about not respecting outsiders.
Or is it your view that what things are "known for" is reasonably constrained only to the people you want to define as being in the real world?
In the real world, there are intransigent people who are immune to evidence or argument, and Ming is unmoved by them. "Known for" does not mean "everyone knows that."
I note the views of the fringe left presumably also fit into this definition of the real world, unless they're claiming GP is a front of the NWO.
... and Ming is as uninterested in their input.
What possible motive does the mainstream news media have, to do such a deep dive into the true essence of a site like Gateway Pundit?
Obviously, first of all, because they have had GP rubbed in their faces in the White House press room. It isn't as though they had to look for that. And prhaps you choose to admit that:
Until the White House credential saga broke, there was no real need to do anything else, since GP was just one of hundreds of such sites. And once it broke, it appears due to the soap opera nature of the Trumpocalypse, they've had insufficient time to do this research, hence they hold fire and keep their reporting on point, in context, presented as mere examples or opinion, lest they be sued, or more likely, be asked to show their workings.
Um, no. Never minding that this sounds like sheer speculation, Ming can find in the Atlantic archives references to GP's. um. problems back close to a decade if not more, which led to this National Review denuciad. There's only so much digging through these archives that Ming is willing to do in order to check your "facts", but it's hardly true that Politico is the only objector.

And after this, well, Ming lost interest again, especially when you had to resort to a sophomore's use of the word "assumptions" when it really doesn't apply. Things that Ming states flat out are not assumptions.
We seem to be back in a familiar place. You believe what you want, and expect others to go further to disprove your theories, than you're prepared to go in justifying yours. And the debate ends with you declaring your disinterest, even though the post we're meant to believe is you being interested, had already ignored quite a bit of what had been said. Presumably because your lazy assumptions leave you with no way to give a proper answer that doesn't further discredit your views.

You're so lazy in your assumptions, and they are just that, you can't even be bothered to accurately portray my views. I respect Politico. I'm happy for their journalistic endeavours to be rewarded with an attributed mention in this Wikipedia article. I'm happy for Snoog's statement to stand unchallenged and unattributed, if other sources meeting Wikipedia's own rules for supporting such claims can be found.

Known for has a recognised meaning to most people. It is the meaning Wikipedia's own rules exist to protect. It of course doesn't include those who could never be convinced, for reasons of bias or stupidity. Your thesis is basically an attempt to convince us that this means no effort needs to be made to convince anyone, that it can just be stated as fact, for the reasons given in your thesis. They are unconvincing, and you're dodging the reasons why, just doubling down on its assumptions.

I haven't presented any facts, just asked how I can check yours. I am seemingly never going to get an answer to that, apparently because you've lazily assumed I'm a right wing nutjob who doesn't know up from down.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:56 am

Midsize Jake wrote:Nor should we necessarily blame them for not wanting to give in to the dilatory demands of right-wingers that they laboriously post extensive citation lists, studies and other research whenever they accuse an entity like the Gateway Pundit of regularly making shit up.
We absolutely should when this is what their own rules say is required of them when they want to say things like "known for", without attribution or qualification. Their rules aren't set in stone, if they're genuinely unhappy that this sets too high a bar for them to clear when smearing their preferred targets, they can change them tomorrow.

They won't, because the name of the game here is deception. They want people to think what they've done here, is actually follow their own rules. Their aiming both to hoodwink the gullible, and to try and make people who can see this is what they're doing, believe they must have somehow got it wrong, misunderstood something about how Wikipedia is supposed to work. This forum should want no part of that deception. It should be being condemned, viscerally.
Midsize Jake wrote:Our focus should be on how classic Wikipedian arrogance and amateurism makes the whole situation worse, etc., but in this case that's based on a subjective argument that a list of cites, even in combination with a separate article section on the issue, is insufficient evidence that Gateway Pundit regularly makes shit up. One's opinion on that is likely to be based mostly on where one stands politically anyway, and regardless, the right-wing folks are likely to respond with "they're suppressing our truth!" and "we're the real victims here!" no matter what happens.
There's no subjectivity about it. It is inarguable that all given cites except the Politico one, are inadmissible for the purposes of backing the statement made. Just like it is inarguable that the content of article has no bearing on the verifiability of the statement. This is what the relevant Wikipedia rules state.

As above, they can be changed at any time, if they're proving to be an inconvenience. Truth is, they're not, as seen by the fact they're regularly applied, quite rigorously, when the right are trying the same against the left. This is why it is important to note the ideological make up of the Wikipedians themselves, because in such things, strength of numbers is used to define perceived strength of argument.

It's the height of folly to assume people on the mainstream left or right will ignore these issues and happily believe whatever aligns with their viewpoint, due process be damned. It has already been seen that RedState are apparently on the wrong team here, if we're meant to be buying into these sort of lazy assumptions. The assumptions fall down, becsause they're based on the same arrogance and amateurism that drives this failure to evenly apply the rules Wikipedia.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Ming » Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:25 pm

CrowsNest wrote:There's no subjectivity about it. It is inarguable that all given cites except the Politico one, are inadmissible for the purposes of backing the statement made.
Ming is with Inigo Montoya on this one. If nothing else, the argument could be made that, since it is a matter of reputation, such citations are the appropriate source. And in any case, the politicized defense of GP is why such statements grow long lists of citations.
As above, they can be changed at any time, if they're proving to be an inconvenience. Truth is, they're not, as seen by the fact they're regularly applied, quite rigorously, when the right are trying the same against the left.
:deadhorse: You go on and on about this, and really, it isn't as though everyone has a strong right-left commitment in this. You've already been shown an older conservative body that attacks the rightists. The truth that everyone in the middle, even vaguely close to the middle, sees is that the Trumpistas and their media supporters have had a contempt for telling the truth that has been apparent for a long time, but which has become downright shocking now that the president himself simply lies constantly and without shame as well. The looney left simply is not as large, or for that matter as cavalier. WP in a lot of areas represents left/liberal dogmas, but that bias is nothing like the flat-out lying that GP and its ilk engage in.

And really, Ming continues to fail to see a point other than that if WP criticism is the undriven nail, everything is a hammer.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Poetlister » Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:01 pm

Midsize Jake wrote:From a forum-moderator's perspective, I don't think we really need to worry about the fact (or is it an alternative fact?) that left-wing folks are much more resistant to the idea that reality and truth - at least with respect to politics and such - are malleable
That depends on how you define left-wing. If you exclude communists and Marxists, it may well be true.
"The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly" - Nietzsche

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Fri Feb 16, 2018 6:07 pm

Ming wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:There's no subjectivity about it. It is inarguable that all given cites except the Politico one, are inadmissible for the purposes of backing the statement made.
Ming is with Inigo Montoya on this one. If nothing else, the argument could be made that, since it is a matter of reputation, such citations are the appropriate source. And in any case, the politicized defense of GP is why such statements grow long lists of citations.
As above, they can be changed at any time, if they're proving to be an inconvenience. Truth is, they're not, as seen by the fact they're regularly applied, quite rigorously, when the right are trying the same against the left.
:deadhorse: You go on and on about this, and really, it isn't as though everyone has a strong right-left commitment in this. You've already been shown an older conservative body that attacks the rightists. The truth that everyone in the middle, even vaguely close to the middle, sees is that the Trumpistas and their media supporters have had a contempt for telling the truth that has been apparent for a long time, but which has become downright shocking now that the president himself simply lies constantly and without shame as well. The looney left simply is not as large, or for that matter as cavalier. WP in a lot of areas represents left/liberal dogmas, but that bias is nothing like the flat-out lying that GP and its ilk engage in.

And really, Ming continues to fail to see a point other than that if WP criticism is the undriven nail, everything is a hammer.
I'm not seeing much point in this either. You just keep returning to your blind assertion narrative. Bizarrely, you've now adopted one of my criticisms of your earlier thesis (about how this is not an exclusively left wing view) as if it's been your own position all this time. You're all over the place.

You clearly don't have any idea how this rule is typically used in action - it has a very obvious bias in enforcement. You ignore what is inconvenient, and can't seem to answer the most basic of questions I pose, no matter how I phrase them. Nobody likes liars, sure, but there's really no difference between a liar, and someone who keeps pretending like their truth doesn't need verifying in the face of rational scepticism. I'm surprised you haven't asked for sources that show GP isn't known for this, that's usually the last refuge of such people.

You believe what you believe, and that's that. Well, good luck with that. It hasn't served your kind well in the 21st Century, and is merely a self-reinforcing tactic, one which has been better utilised by the alt-right to defeat your truth and supplant it with their own. People like me, we're not impressed, and see no need to give Wikipedia a break because they're playing for your team more than the other side. Maybe you'll get it eventually, but I doubt it.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Volunteer Marek » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:42 pm

Bezdomni wrote:
If Snoogs didn't at least try to make it look like he's playing by the rules, he likely wouldn't be able to (ab)use Wikipedia to achieve the things he has, fooling the likes of the BKC to seemingly lift his words verbatim, potentially affecting downstream coverage.
To make it look like the rules are being followed, the lead looks like this:
lede, Gateway Pundit wrote:The Gateway Pundit (TGP) is a right-wing,[2][3][4][5] far-right,[6][7][8] pro-Trump[9] website. It was founded after the United States presidential election in 2004,[10][11] according to its founder Jim Hoft, to "speak the truth" and to "expose the wickedness of the left".[12] The website is often linked to or cited by Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, as well as Drudge Report, Sarah Palin, and other well-known conservative people and media outlets.[13] The website is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.[14][5][15][16]

source
Critical readers don't need much acquaintance with Wikipedia to know there's something fishy about this page (as regards NPOV). The general pattern at WP is that the lead is sufficiently general that it should not require footnotes. Here, however, there are exceptional claims being made which require immediate support. It is more important to those pushing a POV to get "far right" and "right wing" into the lead than it is to avoid raising the readers' BS-o-meters. One might wonder, for example, if these "controversial" claims should be included before basic information like:
  • where the headquarters is located
  • what type of publication it is (web-only? print?)
  • readership numbers
  • number of employees
  • etc.
which might be more objectively demonstrable and not require footnoting in the lead in addition to footnoting in the body of the article.

I recall reading that even folks like Cirt have warned Snoog against reference stacking because it makes the tilting process so transparent to the reader. But here it's not just the footnotes... it's the cherry-picked "smoking gun" quote, the multiple epithets, the guilt by association, etc., etc. that really do harm to Wikipedia's reputation.

Now with regard to the Berkman Center (T-H-L) choosing the Snoog's words, that could be a whole 'nuther question...
"where the headquarters is located" - no, who cares.
"what type of publication it is" - that's right there buddy.
"readership numbers" - that's a dumb thing to require for a website. The Alexa rank is in the infobox.
"number of employees" - who cares. Do you really think that's what readers will want out of the first sentence of the article?

And none of these claims are "exceptional" except to exceptional wackos.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Volunteer Marek » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:47 pm

Ming wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:There's no subjectivity about it. It is inarguable that all given cites except the Politico one, are inadmissible for the purposes of backing the statement made.
Ming is with Inigo Montoya on this one. If nothing else, the argument could be made that, since it is a matter of reputation, such citations are the appropriate source. And in any case, the politicized defense of GP is why such statements grow long lists of citations.
As above, they can be changed at any time, if they're proving to be an inconvenience. Truth is, they're not, as seen by the fact they're regularly applied, quite rigorously, when the right are trying the same against the left.
:deadhorse: You go on and on about this, and really, it isn't as though everyone has a strong right-left commitment in this. You've already been shown an older conservative body that attacks the rightists. The truth that everyone in the middle, even vaguely close to the middle, sees is that the Trumpistas and their media supporters have had a contempt for telling the truth that has been apparent for a long time, but which has become downright shocking now that the president himself simply lies constantly and without shame as well. The looney left simply is not as large, or for that matter as cavalier. WP in a lot of areas represents left/liberal dogmas, but that bias is nothing like the flat-out lying that GP and its ilk engage in.

And really, Ming continues to fail to see a point other than that if WP criticism is the undriven nail, everything is a hammer.
If someone wants to seriously argue that GT *is not* a far right website that publishes hoaxes and fake news then they've already lost the argument. This isn't something that's really up for debate. The Devil's Advocate is just being his usual lying piece of shit self.

And while we're on the topic every single thing TDA/gg_number9 writes is essentially some version of "oh noes!!!! Somebody on Wikipedia made an edit that TDA disagrees with! Conspiracy! Leftwing bias! Surely someone somewhere must have had a conflict of interest to make such an edit! Stop the presses and tear your hair out! Harass the perpetrators! End of the world! Someone. Made. An. Edit. TDA. Disgrees. With! Me! Me! Me! Me! Look at me everyone and how special I am!"

Basically the dude got banned from Wikipedia for being an asshole in disputes, then for harassing the shit out of the people who he was in disputes with off wiki and he STILL can't let shit go. He so desperately wants to still be part of the usual Wikipedia fighting-edit-warring-sparring-battlegroundin' that he had so much fun with before he got banned that he writes these desperate pieces as attempts to insert himself into whatever controversy is going on at Wikipedia at the moment from the outside, thinking that anyone actually gives a shit. It's sort of sad.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:58 pm

Volunteer Marek wrote:If someone wants to seriously argue that GT *is not* a far right website that publishes hoaxes and fake news then they've already lost the argument. This isn't something that's really up for debate.
Luckily for them, this isn't the debate. Did you fail to spot that deliberately, or because you rarely follow these things in sufficient detail to provide worthwhile commentary? As this thread has done to death, any moron can find examples of this, they just need access to Uncle Google. Just like any moron can find examples of Wikipedia "publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes."

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Sat Feb 17, 2018 3:27 am

Poetlister wrote:
Midsize Jake wrote:From a forum-moderator's perspective, I don't think we really need to worry about the fact (or is it an alternative fact?) that left-wing folks are much more resistant to the idea that reality and truth - at least with respect to politics and such - are malleable
That depends on how you define left-wing. If you exclude communists and Marxists, it may well be true.
::befuddled::

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Sat Feb 17, 2018 3:30 am

Randy from Boise wrote:
Poetlister wrote:...If you exclude communists and Marxists, it may well be true.
::befuddled::
Well, he's British.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:25 pm

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/ ... sts-415672

Lots of lessons in this recent incident, which further support my positions this thread. I got halfway through writing them up, then thought, why bother......

I will merely note the irony of the fact that it is only Politico who seem to have done much research into this incident. Perhaps that is a sign they deserve proper credit for planting their flag in the sand, in the Gateway Pundit issue. Then again, there are clear and obvious differences in the two pieces, which is undoubtedly due to who benefits.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by DanMurphy » Sat Feb 17, 2018 4:45 pm

Snopes -Not the only false rumor pushed by Gateway Pundit blogger Lucian Wintrich... No genuine news outlets have reported that Cruz was registered to vote for a specific political party."

CNN - "The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website known for peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories, added to the chorus."

Gizmodo - "Unreliable websites like Infowars, Gateway Pundit, and Heavy are reporting as fact the..."

Vice - "The alt-right has found itself a new baseless conspiracy... the story has now found new life among alt-right conspiracy theorists...
Gateway Pundit, for example..."


Salon - Pioneers of Fake News: Can World Net Daily Be Saved? "Their traffic losses are nowhere near the declines experienced by several right-wing sites who had managed to build massive audiences thanks to fabricated, exaggerated and deliberately inflammatory content... "Since the election, my Facebook traffic has been significantly impacted," Jim Hoft, owner of the frequently wrong Gateway Pundit blog said during a Feb. 6 summit of far-right social media pundits... Hoft did not mention that he had in the past boasted about providing "fun" for readers by posting unchecked stories. Like Hoft, Farah has refused to admit that his long record of promoting ludicrously false claims could be the reason why search and social media companies have sought to minimize his influence."

Snopes - "Sites like YourNewsWire, Gateway Pundit and InfoWars have made it a habitual practice to cynically exploit tragedies and spread false information about them for their own purposes."

The Daily Beast - "Far-right conspiracy sites InfoWars and Gateway Pundit, who framed three innocent people for terror attacks last year based on posts from 4chan, Reddit and anonymous Twitter accounts, started pushing similar Amtrak-related conspiracies on Wednesday afternoon."

Newsweek - "Conspiracy and news site Gateway Pundit."

The Stranger - "Alt-right provocateurs like Gateway Pundit columnist Lucian Wintrich."

Buzzfeed - Conspiracy Theorists Are Trying to Link the Death of a Billionaire Canadian Couple to the Clinton Foundation and it's Nuts. "This week, the notoriously unreliable right-wing blog the Gateway Pundit published a post heavily implying the Shermans had been murdered due to their work with the Clinton Foundation."

Those are just from the past 3 weeks and from a very cursory use of Google News. There have been scholars and professional media critics who have correctly described this website as dishonest trash (though you might - horrors! - have to get access to specialist databases or go to a library to access them) and if one were doing real research (say, by interviewing media and communications experts) the result would be to resoundingly confirm the thing in itself, which presents itself to any reasonable person after spending 5 minutes at this and similar websites.

Low signal-to-noise ratios are never good for internet forums. But when so much of your noise is being generated by an apologist for white supremacist liars who spins adenoidal, alt-reich reason free bullshit out at a rate 3x faster than your next most frequent poster, it's a death knell (well, if you're actually interested in fostering reasonable discussion on the topic at hand.)

edit: fixed links -t

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by Renée Bagslint » Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:11 pm

It seems strange that the discussion generally, and on this thread in particular, is not always capable of distinguishing two statements which seem to me to be distinct:
  • People of all political persuasions look at what a website says, compare it with the evidence, and conclude that is is full of hoaxes and lies;
  • People of one political persuasion look at what a website says, decide that it is of the opposite political persuasion, and conclude that it is full of hoaxes and lies.

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Re: Gateway Pundit victim of Wikipedia smear?

Unread post by CrowsNest » Sat Feb 17, 2018 9:05 pm

DanMurphy wrote:Snopes -Not the only false rumor pushed by Gateway Pundit blogger Lucian Wintrich... No genuine news outlets have reported that Cruz was registered to vote for a specific political party."

Snopes are irrelevant as a source for this claim - see previous posts which addressed this in detail, if you intend to disagree.

CNN - "The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website known for peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories, added to the chorus."

Looks remarkably similar to the wording added to Wikipedia a year ago. Do you have any evidence that CNN came to this conclusion before then? That was rather the main point of this thread, whether Wikipedia has pissed in the pool of reliable sources, making them all suspect for this particular claim.

Also noteworthy that this throwaway descriptor is only being used to preface their mention of a GP quote which appears to be neither misinformation nor a hoax, but legitimate comment. It's a comment that the left wouldn't like (the FBI should be spending more time investigating potential school shooters than Russia), but hey, I'm sure that's just a coincidence for why they included the (apparently irrelevant in context) descriptor.....

Gizmodo - "Unreliable websites like Infowars, Gateway Pundit, and Heavy are reporting as fact the..."

Relevance? All this would support is the claim GP is an unreliable website, which is of course quite different to the text discussed in this thread. If you read the whole article, it puts this in context, drawing a distinction between GP reporting what it has found in social media posts under the same name as the Florida shooter, describing this as unverified, and people who literally just make shit up.

Hilariously, this piece is happy to assume reporting by the Daily Mail and Metro is factually correct. Naturally, the Wikipedians would have an absolute fit if this were the stance of an editor touching one of their precious articles with these non-WP:RS, the former having become infamous as the only newspaper explicitly banned because the Wikipedians apparently believe they're in the third category, regularly just making shit up.

So, let's not be hypocrites and use this source to back up Wikipedia's statement about GP when we can see its other conclusions in the very same piece would be disputed by Wikipedians as garbage.

Vice - "The alt-right has found itself a new baseless conspiracy... the story has now found new life among alt-right conspiracy theorists...
Gateway Pundit, for example..."


In context, this looks suspiciously like just another example type source. I suppose you could infer the piece is meant to make definitive statements about what GP is known for, but it doesn't seem like one should be relying on inference to be able to source.

Salon - Pioneers of Fake News: Can World Net Daily Be Saved? "Their traffic losses are nowhere near the declines experienced by several right-wing sites who had managed to build massive audiences thanks to fabricated, exaggerated and deliberately inflammatory content... "Since the election, my Facebook traffic has been significantly impacted," Jim Hoft, owner of the frequently wrong Gateway Pundit blog said during a Feb. 6 summit of far-right social media pundits... Hoft did not mention that he had in the past boasted about providing "fun" for readers by posting unchecked stories. Like Hoft, Farah has refused to admit that his long record of promoting ludicrously false claims could be the reason why search and social media companies have sought to minimize his influence."

Again, as above, a lot of inference has to be made here, to draw any support for an explicit, Wikipedia supportable, statement about what GP is known for. The piece focuses on WND, so it is unsurprising that what you quoted here was literally the only part of it that mentioned GP.

Snopes - "Sites like YourNewsWire, Gateway Pundit and InfoWars have made it a habitual practice to cynically exploit tragedies and spread false information about them for their own purposes."

As above.

The Daily Beast - "Far-right conspiracy sites InfoWars and Gateway Pundit, who framed three innocent people for terror attacks last year based on posts from 4chan, Reddit and anonymous Twitter accounts, started pushing similar Amtrak-related conspiracies on Wednesday afternoon."

The lazy conflation of IW and GP seems to be the giveaway that this isn't the considered opinion we're meant to take it as.

In a delicious irony, given the quote, The Daily Beast was of course one of the titles that happily ran with the now debunked Cruz is a white supremacist hoax, originating on 4Chan. It would seem unfair to use a source like this, to cite a claim that GP is known for spreading hoaxes, no? It's still up, by the way, the update barely visible, and not exactly comprehensive. Perhaps this disqualifies it as WP:RS? Perhaps this allows us to use it as an example in the Daily Beast's Wikipedia article of the ways it spreads hoaxes?

Https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikolas-c ... eader-says

Newsweek - "Conspiracy and news site Gateway Pundit."

Not even sure "conspiracy and news site" is even suppose to mean. How do you extrapolate "know for" from those diametrically opposed labels? The rest of the piece isn't about GP at all, but does funnily enough contain information about GP that the Wikipedians definitely wouldn't like, including stuff that can be used as evidence of what GP would like to be known for, and indeed what some commentators might even agree with, therefore making it unlikely this source would ever survive in the article.

The Stranger - "Alt-right provocateurs like Gateway Pundit columnist Lucian Wintrich."

Doesn't remotely relate to the "known for" claim in dispute, nor is it even a comment about the website as a whole.

Buzzfeed - Conspiracy Theorists Are Trying to Link the Death of a Billionaire Canadian Couple to the Clinton Foundation and it's Nuts. "This week, the notoriously unreliable right-wing blog the Gateway Pundit published a post heavily implying the Shermans had been murdered due to their work with the Clinton Foundation."

AFAIK Buzzfeed is not WP:RS.
DanMurphy wrote:Those are just from the past 3 weeks and from a very cursory use of Google News. There have been scholars and professional media critics who have correctly described this website as dishonest trash (though you might - horrors! - have to get access to specialist databases or go to a library to access them) and if one were doing real research (say, by interviewing media and communications experts) the result would be to resoundingly confirm the thing in itself, which presents itself to any reasonable person after spending 5 minutes at this and similar websites.

Low signal-to-noise ratios are never good for internet forums. But when so much of your noise is being generated by an apologist for white supremacist liars who spins adenoidal, alt-reich reason free bullshit out at a rate 3x faster than your next most frequent poster, it's a death knell (well, if you're actually interested in fostering reasonable discussion on the topic at hand.)
What's bad for internet forums, is people who jump into a thread with a handful of links they found on Uncle Google which they think prove something, without having actually bothered to read the thread and realise what was being talked about.

If you want to meaningfully contribute, it would've been nice if you could have used your database/library access to rustle up some expert opinion that predates the time Snoog pissed in the pond, potentially contaminating all results, as I suspect is what happened with the CNN link.
Last edited by CrowsNest on Sat Feb 17, 2018 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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