The paper that helps Britain’s enemies, The Guardian, reports that Wikipedia editors have voted to class The Daily Mail as “generally unreliable” and ban it as a source in all but exceptional circumstances.  The report quotes a statement from the Wikimedia Foundation — which runs Wikipedia but doesn’t control it’s editing policies –saying volunteer editors had come to the consensus that The Daily Mail was to be generally prohibited for use as a reference, especially when “other, more reliable sources exist”.

The statement continues “This means that The Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a ‘reliable source’ on English Wikipedia … This is consistent with how Wikipedia editors evaluate and use media outlets in general — with common sense and caution.”

The process of cleaning out references to The Daily Mail has already started, with editors asking for volunteers to replace some 12,000 links to the site with more alternative sources wherever possible.

The report notes that some Wikipedia editors oppose the move, arguing The Daily Mail is not invariably unreliable, nor are more respected sources entirely infallible. Some have argued it has more to do with a specific dislike of The Daily Mail than any objective standards. The Guardian also points out that links to the site will presumably have to stay up on The Daily Mail’s Wikipedia page at the very least.

So, not really an all-out ban, but in the spirit of The Daily Mail, we’re going to leave the headline as it is. — Charlie Lewis