Talk:WorldNetDaily

COLB vs. COB, and removal of some material.

In this edit I've removed some fact-tagged taxt from the article, to wit: "... , even though Obama's campaign already posted it on its' website and a hard copy of the document is sealed by state law." This is {{fact}} tagged. The document posted online was a "Certificatation of Live Birth" (COLB), not a "Certificate of Birth" (COB). There are differences between these types of documents which have been discussed elsewhere ad nauseum. Rather than open up yet another discussion here about COLBs vs. COBs, I've removed the bit I've quoted above. The removed text appears to me to be incidental to the point of the paragraph

Revised layout?

I propose reworking the sections as follows:

• Description
• History
  • Origins (from History)
  • Libel Lawsuit
  • 9/11 (from Controversies)
  • Standing Committee of Correspondents (from History)
  • Obama citizenship
  • Homocon
  • Neil Patrick Harris
• WND Products
• References

The goal is to eliminate what is essentially a criticism section and fold it into their history. Also, the description is more pertinent information than trivial about its founder and origins and should take precedence. Thoughts?

Lead sentence "promoting a number of conspiracy theories"?

The lead claim is that the website has promoted a number of conspiracy theories, but the content of the and the sources used only has one (the Barack Obama birther stuff).

Should that be changed?

Marquis de Faux (talk) 22:23, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Hilarious bias

I find it quite amusing that conservative news sources are labelled conservative, but those with a CLEAR """liberal""" bias, like NYT for instance, are 'just a newspaper'.

REALLY makes you think!

Furthermore, the very first reference is hilariously bad--is your source that WND is conservative a quote by a politico writer referring to it as the 'conservative website WND'? That hardly holds any weight.

--Crisbrm (talk) 19:28, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM. Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Description

• hand-picked contributors from the fringes of the far-right and fundamentalist worlds
• a reporter for the far-right World Net Daily
• further out on the fringe such as World Net Daily
• Far-right Web sites like World Net Daily

and more

• Big news this week from WorldNetDaily, America's pre-eminent source of far-right fringe theories and weird scams
• World Net Daily, a far-right webzine
• a conspiracist webstie

etc. etc.

Please stop removing text based on reliable sources. Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm unsure to what this refers, but descriptors should be handled carefully - perhaps contrasting official self-descriptions with other sources' descriptions where appropriate. I believe we need to be careful not to write in Wikipedia's voice for controversial claims. Mrtea (talk) 18:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

It depends on how widely a description is used in reliable sources, which here it's pretty comment. And yes we can say "it describes itself as such and such, but has been referred to as xyz by independent sources". Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:17, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Suggest you stop reverting and bring in outside parties for discussion, Volunteer Marek. Mrtea (talk) 18:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Outside parties are welcome. Discussion is welcome. But did you notice I'm the only one trying to discuss this? Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: My reply above was intended to suggest you follow the Wikipedia policy on dispute resolution. On that policy page you can find links to request third-party opinions, comments, etc. You may not be familiar with the policy on edit warring, (which is what appears to me to be happening here.) I suggest you stop making edits to the article about this and follow the suggestions in the dispute resolution policy instead. --Mrtea (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Mrtea, I'm perfectly aware of dispute resolution. That's why I started this talk page discussion. Unlike the other user who only reverted. Also, please note that the other user just got blocked for following my edits around and making revenge reverts. So that's what was going on here. The guy below was going around engaging in WP:STALKING and WP:HARASSMENT. Not exactly sure how I'm suppose to discuss something with someone who's doing that. Anyway, they got justifiably blocked

Now, if you have a suggestion about the content, I'm all ears. Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:36, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

even silly blogs like huffington post call it conservative. stop making POV edits everyplace http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carl-gallups-donald-trump_us_56e028f9e4b0860f99d740ac KMilos (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

There's seven sources right above, or did you not notice? We can say both as a compromise - "which has been described as conservative [sources] or far-right [sources]". And thanks for finally coming to the talk page. Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

you can see i added 8 source to article. there are 10 sources there that say conservative. and little huffington blog i added just infront you is another. also i told you to take to talk section about your POV edits but you undid multiple times before that.. thanks for listening now KMilos (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

KMilos, so how about the compromise version where we mention both? And yes, I've noticed that you've been copy/pasting my edit summary as if it was your own into all your revenge reverts and I've asked you to stop doing that. Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:16, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

A suggestion above: We can say both as a compromise - "which has been described as conservative [sources] or far-right [sources]". This sounds good to me. -- Hoary (talk) 03:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Based on the sources provided, I disagree with that suggestion/compromise. As of this writing, the current iteration of the article is Volunteer Marek's edit consisting of a variation of that.[1] This has been reverted back and forth several times. The four sources used casually label WND as "fringe" and "far-right" and are not strong enough reliable sources to conclude that they represent a majority view:

• hand-picked contributors from the fringes of the far-right and fundamentalist worlds

SPLC hate group designations are controversial.

• a reporter for the far-right World Net Daily

In this source the Washington Post refers to Lester Kinsolving writing for WND. His Wikipedia article seems to indicate past bad blood between him and Washington Post which may suggest possible conflict of interest.

• Far-right Web sites like World Net Daily

This is listed on the publisher's website as an "essay" and it reads like an opinion piece so I infer that's what it is. It makes it somewhat less reliable.

• further out on the fringe such as World Net Daily

This is another opinion piece.

I disagree that the fringe/alt-right labels are so mainstream that they belong in the first sentence of the article. --Mrtea (talk) 03:55, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I also disagree that the label "fringe" is mainstream and I ask that editors respect the discussion and keep long term stable wording of the first sentence of the lead until we can reach a compromise. I reverted to the stable version. Maybe we need an RfC? Lipsquid (talk) 04:31, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Uh, I tried to have a compromise wording but you reverted it. How can we "reach a compromise" if you just revert to your preferred version? Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:35, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Mrtea, you can't just dismiss sources on flimsy pretexts. Of course some of these are going to be opinions pieces. So are the sources which call it "conservative". In particular

1. We are not calling WorldNetDaily a "hate group" and neither is SPLC so it's irrelevant of whether their designations of some OTHER groups as "hate groups" is "controversial" (it depends on your definition of "controversial" I guess)

2. Washington Post is a perfectly reliable source and I don't see what supposed "bad blood" has to do with anything. Just because they caught him years ago for some shenanigans, doesn't make what they say about WND right now any less reliable. *Maybe* if the tables were turned, you'd have a point. But not here

3. This is the Columbia Journalism Review - since they, like, review journalisms, their "opinion" of the nature of WND is quite relevant.

4. So it's an opinion piece? So what? We're looking for how WND is described in reliable sources. That includes this one.

5. I listed 3 additional sources above and I could keep going but seriously if any and all sources will just be dismissed out of hand why should I bother? Like Hoary says, we've got a pretty straight forward way to compromise here, by listing and sourcing both designations, so why not do that? Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

My sentiments exactly. Seems to be a clear case of WP:IDLI.--Galassi (talk) 04:57, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Other sources for the description "far right" include this, this, this, this and this. -- Hoary (talk) 05:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I was simply commenting that the references you used were not very strong reliable sources. Opinion pieces can still be acceptable but should be used with caution. See WP:NEWSBLOG for the rationale. If you have better sources, perhaps you should use those instead. --Mrtea (talk) 15:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I have an issue with calling a site that primarily aggregates news from other non-fringe sites, fringe, because some of the articles are not mainstream. If having articles that do not follow mainstream beliefs were all fringe every news site would be fringe as everyone has printed a birther article. But I am not on a one man crusade. I will leave the compromise edit and see if others have interest in the article in the future. I have self-reverted to consensus. Best wishes, Lipsquid (talk) 06:23, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I have a (I think slight) problem with this edit. I don't think we can say in Wikipedia voice that it is "a conservative website", only that "it has been described as conservative". The distinction is important, especially since I'm pretty sure there's lots of conservatives out there who would wish not to be associated with the kind of fringe material WND publishes. Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:02, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

"The website is known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories, leading some journalists to label it a far-right fringe website"

This was an obvious waste of time from the start, the only thing that’s ever going to happen is endless cycles or “debate me bro” “no we have WP:RS” Dronebogus (talk) 12:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Promoting falsehoods? Such a statement does not belong here. Conspiracy theories? Obviously, the editor who inserted that doesn't believe in scepticism. This isn't an article about religion, where God distinguishes dogmas and falsehoods, and doesn't tolerate different viewpoints. far-right fringe website is a derogatory political label that doesn't belong here, either — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4C50:252:5600:D0F5:57D4:8705:E022 (talk) 09:28, 26 May 2017 (UTC) We go with reliable sources. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 09:53, 26 May 2017 (UTC) But therein lies the rub. WND, along with a growing amount of the general public, routinely questions the "reliability" of the mainstream news sources. As OP said, skepticism does not equate to promotion of falsehood. ⇔ ChristTrekker 19:16, 2 June 2017 (UTC) It has been proven by admission of for instance by Mark Zuckerberg that strong efforts to suppress certain types of media from governmental agencies such as FBI is taking place: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/mark-zuckerberg-admits-facebook-censored-hunter-biden-laptop-story-during-2020-u-s-elections/article65815040.ece , https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/markzuckerberg/video-2758931/Video-Mark-Zuckerberg-admits-Facebook-censored-Hunter-Biden-story.html WND tries to expose government corruption and "1984"-efforts and has therefore come in the lime-light of all those in power, billionaires among them and certain royal families and certain politicians, that tries to operate in the shadows, and has therefore been heavy attacked and miss-credited and and miss-labeled on purpose to decrease its influence. The force by which google has tried to censor wnd, recently show actually how deeply needed this website is to expose corruption: https://web.archive.org/web/20220831110021/https://www.google.com/interstitial?url=https://www.wnd.com, when you open the content of google transparency warning: https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search?url=https:%2F%2Fwww.wnd.com%2F&hl=sv it says no un-safe content found. Edotor (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2022 (UTC) It seems to me that in the age of clickbait and dying advertising models, articles about WND being a crackpot site are going to be more numerous than a balanced article that examines the controversies purported by WND and critically analyzes them in a balanced way. I think it's a bit of a drawback of Wikipedia to some degree. Many right wing public figures have these descriptors (e.g. "promotes falsehoods") because they expound views that contradict the mainstream narrative. This is my personal view, but it's an explanation to address your concern. --Mrtea (talk) 12:33, 26 May 2017 (UTC) It is amusing to watch the far-right -- traditionally opponents of the Postmodernist emphasis on the sociology of knowledge -- slowly drift towards an embrace of the traditionally far-left view that the mainstream media are not distinguished by their reliability but only by their narrative. In fact, the claim is true: WND is widely known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories. That this is a true claim does not alone mean it belongs in the article. But let's not pretend this is anything other than common knowledge that is readily supported by minimal objective research. Cerberus (talk) 20:50, 8 June 2017 (UTC) Just the opposite. The MSM is showing itself to be ever more unreliable—they are the very "fake news" they accuse others of peddling. It's not about a rightist narrative, it's about facts. ⇔ ChristTrekker 22:11, 23 June 2017 (UTC) Please guys, this isn't a forum. Take this to a proper forum. Doug Weller talk 09:25, 24 June 2017 (UTC) User https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dronebogus is trying to discredit edits that remove facts about wnd. If you read this Dronebogus please add your reasons here kindly Edotor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edotor (talk • contribs) 12:24, 31 August 2022 (UTC) Hi, I reverted your additions too: Wikipedia reports what reliable sources say. We do not add our own interpretations. Mvbaron (talk) 12:34, 31 August 2022 (UTC) The references I added are google's own search result, which corroborates Farahs claim, bing and brave search does not have this anti wnd.com bias. So the removal/undo is illogical. Please argue for the need for removal of these references. Edotor (talk) 12:38, 31 August 2022 (UTC) You added This claim has been verified by Alphabets Inc. search result manipulation behaviour but have not provided any source for the claim that Alphabet has manipulated anything. Mvbaron (talk) 12:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Newbie looking for insight into WND status as 'unreliable'

I am new to editing, and genuinely do not understand why WND is not considered reliable. That is not my way of saying I think it is, I am just looking for clarification on why this site specifically is not considered reliable, perhaps in bullet points. I also don't fully understand how the talk pages work so sorry if this is not the proper use of it or I have missed something.

I guess my other question is who is the 'decider' of things like these. Is there a vote or an editor with final say? How does consensus form? What if there are many arguments on the talk page about why x site is unreliable, but I don't find them to be compelling arguments? How is it decided officially that an edit can be removed from an article due to an unreliable source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proustfala (talk • contribs) 05:18, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Proustfala, this talk page is for discussing improvements to the associated article and not for discussing WND's reliability as a Wikipedia source. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 06:09, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

I think it is unlikely that a new editor will know what the Teahouse is, how to find it, or how to locate your answer there. Fwiw. Cerberus (talk) 20:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

See User talk:Proustfala#Proustfala, you are invited to the Teahouse! Of course the new editor may have ignored that. . . dave souza, talk 23:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

But no! They started a discussion, subsequently archived. . . dave souza, talk 23:29, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

How many sources do we need to describe it as far-right?

Besides the deleted Chicago Tribune source, I found [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Doug Weller talk 10:54, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm more concerned that it is labeled as conservative. Is an organization that is often described as "far right" really conservative? How about describing it as "reactionary"? To illustrate the difference, the phrase "make our society (something) again" (to paraphrase a recent slogan expressing a desire to return to a previous political state of a society) is reactionary in nature, whereas "keep our society (something)" (a slogan expressing a desire to maintain the status quo) is conservative in nature, even though they don't always seem so. WND might be reactionary on some topics and conservative on others, but that can't be defined by the unmodified term "conservative." Jack N. Stock (talk) 17:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Information on WND that fails to make it into this article

I am not a consumer of WND.com, but in reading this Wikipedia article, I have to agree with so many others above who point out the obvious lack of disinterest by the editors. Like many articles in Wikipedia on "fringe" and ""far right" news sites, this one poisons the well in the first sentence. Why is that unreliable lefty news sources (e.g. Media Matters) are always initially described as "progressive" with an immediate reference to the site's mission statement? Never are they called "far left" in the lead sentence (although they inarguably are).

Well, here is WND's mission statement -- how about including it in the opening paragraph:

“WND is an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society – as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power. We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character.”

And while the bulk of this article discusses WND's "Controversies" at great length, it fails to mention a single one of the news stories the site has broken over the years. Where is the paragraph on that? Christian B Martin (talk) 21:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

We rarely include mission statements. They are virtually always self-serving. As the saying goes, "actions speak louder than words". Doug Weller talk 10:05, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

"We rarely include mission statements." Uh, hello ... Doug? Any one home? My comment included a link for the Wikipedia article on Media Matters and to that article's inclusion of that entity's "virtually always self-serving" mission statement in the lead sentence. And there are other examples of course. Christian B Martin (talk) 02:41, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

So what? That's a different article. Argue your case there. Where are your reliable independent sources about the news stories you mention? Doug Weller talk 08:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Christian B Martin, Mission statements do not belong (see WP:MISSION). Remove on sight. Guy (help!) 23:07, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

"So what? That's a different article." Huh? That was the whole point of my comment nincompoop -- that Wikipedia articles on news sources are inequitable based on the ideological bias of the news site. And so an example of this was given. As I must boringly repeat, you clearly do not read attentively and should certainly steer clear of editing. (By the way, who is this "We" you pompously speak of in "We rarely include mission statements"). As for the "sources" you seek from me, if you really care, they are certainly out there for YOU to find. Boring! Christian B Martin (talk) 02:41, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

The specific reason we can use Media Matters' description of themselves as progressive and not the mission statement you're citing is because of the requirements of WP:ABOUTSELF, which forbid us from using a source to cite anything about themselves that is "unduly self-serving". Progressive is a relatively neutral descriptor of Media Matters' politics (in fact, it is very likely that editors went for a primary source because they wanted to forestall people on the left arguing that Media Matters was unbiased by making it clear that that was how the organization described itself), while the mission statement is also cited to a secondary source; the quote you're describing is obviously much more self-serving. That said, it's hardly difficult to find secondary sources describing Media Matters as progressive, so I added one to that page. Also, I would generally say that comparing the treatment of ideologically-opposed groups is not a useful way to judge articles; we are required to cover topics neutrally according to what mainstream sources say. If those sources (for instance) make Media Matters sound better than WND, it would be WP:FALSEBALANCE for us to try and put our thumb on the scales and "correct" that. --Aquillion (talk) 03:03, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

References

"deprecated inline" templates

Not sure what they add -- if WorldNetDaily is allowed to be an acceptable source for non-exceptional non-promotional claims about itself (in the usual way), then the tags should be removed. If it isn't, then this article would seem to need radical surgery (not just tagging)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:14, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

AnonMoos, WND should not be used for anything. It is deprecated because it is unreliable. The tags are there to invite people to replace them with a better source. If that doesn't happen, the content can be removed. Guy (help!) 23:05, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I realize that WorldNetDaily is deeply worthless on politics, but I don't understand why it would be an exception to the usual "Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves" rule (scan down to subsection 3.3. of WP:RS). AnonMoos (talk) 21:31, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

AnonMoos, get it down to one or two self-sourced links and we can talk. Right now about a quarter of the sources are WND. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:22, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This article is heavily WP:POV related and even that is redacted, some neutral editors pls help

There are several contributors that wants to add corroborated material to this page that has been blocked doing so solely based on non-fact based arguments from @Doug Weller, @Mvbaron, @Dronebogus, @XenonNSMB and others, referring Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Now, do not get me wrong, I am still waiting to get factual arguments but only procedural arguments have been presented. I expected the experienced editors to behave according to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Follow the normal protocol, Wikipedia:Etiquette and Wikipedia:Five pillars but the only reply that came was stone-walling in terms of do not answer the argument. So this post is a request for help to get some upvotes and a motivated group of editors that is not biased in a certain area and indeed can balance efforts to silence edits on this page.

You who are an editor/administrator who disagree with me, are of course are tempted to propose a sanction for bringing this argument up, but before doing so, remember that Wikipedia:Five pillars argues for neutral point of view, and many points brought to this article including the first statement definitely begs for a POV tag which was also removed by @Doug Weller without motivation. I have in replies to @Doug Weller, @Mvbaron, @Dronebogus asked for motivations, but it is absent. I have thoroughly examined Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Five_pillars, Wikipedia:Etiquette and Wikipedia:Five pillars of evil and they all point to civility and politeness and the first thing to ask for is a sound and factual argument, not a procedural argument that is common in court of law to toss the case altogether. I trust that the majority of wikipedia admins and editors does not stand behind such behavior. This post is a test to see if Wikipedia live up to its Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Follow the normal protocol.

One fact that was deleted today was that google.com have biased search hit against wnd.com and put out a false warning on its search result: https://www.google.com/interstitial?url=https://www.wnd.com/. When you click the details of the warning content: https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search?url=https:%2F%2Fwww.wnd.com%2F&hl=sv it says: "No unsafe content found". Obviously a strong bias from google against wnd.com in the form of false-negative. Similair search engines such as bing, duckduckgo, or brave does not behave in such false-negative way. If anyone has any better understanding of Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Five_pillars please educate me and tell why the google source does not conform to Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Look forward to a polite reply.

- Kindly @Edotor (talk) 20:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)