"Should the "criticism of a News source" be dropped?" Topic

We already have a rule against discussing politics. Why do we need to add yet another inconsistently applied rule on top of it.
If I add, to quote loosely the FAQ, "The New York Times is just a left wing rag", I am already engaging in politics.
Yet I CAN criticize both the New York Daily New or the New York Post as being "only tabloids". Because they are published in a tabloid format, exactly like the National Enquirer.
And to be honest, I often find the Enquirer ahead of the rest of the pack. I knew about O J Simpson being a wife beater from scanning headlines in line at the supermarket two years before he killed her.
In fact, one might say that the NY Times is often almost as accurate as the Enquirer.
And when the Enquirer goes into politics, it often nails it.
I could go on…..

This rule is so open to interpretation that I propose we drop it completely.
If criticizing Fox or MSNBC or National Review or the N Y Times is political, with the exception of the "10 year rule", then DH for politics.

Are we allowed to criticize Harper's Weekly for its coverage of Gettysburg? By the way the rule is written, I would say No.

And what about authors?

I would go further and remove the ban on politics and only DH for Bad Behavior. But let's take this a step at a time and concentrate on the "News Source Rule".

This rule is so open to interpretation that I propose we drop it completely.

This rule is certainly a subset of the existing rules, however, occasionally (well, often) you get people who would say an ad hominem attack on an organization isn't ad hominmen because it is at an organization, not an individual. So it clarifies the meaning.

Are we allowed to criticize Harper's Weekly for its coverage of Gettysburg? By the way the rule is written, I would say No.

Actually, the way the rule is written, you can criticize coverage. What is is written to prohibit generic and baseless attacks against the news source, not substantive discussion.

And what about authors?

Criticizing the authors is an ad hominem attack, so no. Criticizing their personal beliefs and viewpoints is ad hominem, so no. Criticizing the way those belief manifested in a news article by omitting or slanting important facets of what they reported on, fair game.

If one can't see the difference between:

* Harper's Weekly sucks!

and

* Harper's Weekly's article on Gettysburg left out substantive issues like A, B, and C.

then one will have difficulty with the rule.

Not that it isn't inherently complicated. Categorizing something as a tabloid is a legitimate critique in the field of jornalism. It is a well defined category (as well as you can do in that field), and is a common technical term.

What is and isn't important is a subjective determination. It is possible to discuss differences in viewpoint without resorting to third grade name calling. (In fact, when I see someone resort to that, I interpret it as "I can't counter your argument with a substantive point.") And where we can't, we should be reprimanded.

I would go further and remove the ban on politics and only DH for Bad Behavior. But let's take this a step at a time and concentrate on the "News Source Rule".

I agree with this in principle, however, in practice we see behaviour that ignores the type of distinction this rule was designed to mitigate.

It is fundamentally the same thing as rules-lawyering. If we didn't have rules-lawyers and could all act like gentlemen, then we would have much shorter rule books!

:)

It's kind of funny that a large amount of content posted on the site is links to various news stories…but we can't discuss the source of said stories.

Agreed.

As I keep saying, TMP shod not punish content. Just bad behavior.

I'm always kind of glad/interested when, let us say, a Bordurian newspaper is quoted, and someone from Borduria says "Oh, that newspaper is considered practically a mouthpiece of Syldavian irredentists in my country."

Can we criticize an imaginary news paper?

Can we please stick to miniatures?

I don't suppose that the credibility of sourcing is a key tenet of formal debate, the law, academic research, and journalism is a sufficient reason to allow its use in argumentation?

The rules against criticism of sourcing primarily protect citations from highly suspect sources from being rejected as untrustworthy, lacking standing, and being largely unfounded.

It is a great leveler making absolute fantasy the equal of fact. This is an enabler of all sorts of rumor, propaganda, and paranoia.

Oddly enough, the one place where there are no such restrictions, The Blue Fez, seems have devolved into the same 5-6 guys sharing their fears and fantasies by quoting from nothing but suspect sources! It seems to have become more of a mutual support session than discussion.

I think TMPs problems in these areas may go deeper than arbitrary rules and capricious editing.

Nope, Pluto is demoted for reasons I'm not 100% sure I can explain, even if I think I kind of understand them

Maybe we need more fezes? Red,Green, Orange? :^))

Its another one of those pointless rules. Get rid of it

dilettante +1 !

More fezes, Lovely!

All this censorship and rules! Just the beginning. Look what happened in Bongolesia.

I will defend little Pluto until my dying day. Pluto is a planet because it has a circumnavigation around the sun. That in my mind makes it a planet. Not a moon or a planetoid. Rock on Pluto.

Apart from that the DH is for cheeky chappies rather like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape.

Compared to the mind-boggling stuff that gets trolled out over the internet TMP seems to me a haven of sanity.

There are some News channels that are bogus, but we have that in our lives every day.

What happened in Bongolesia?

My local news isn't covering it.

;-)

The rules against criticism of sourcing primarily protect citations from highly suspect sources from being rejected as untrustworthy, lacking standing, and being largely unfounded.

No, the rule does not do that. You are free to discuss and criticize the source of the news, if you actually offer a critique. If your comment is "they suck" or "left/right-wing idiots", then you are making an ad hominem attack, which is against the rules.

Since this rule is so heinously and frequently misapplied, can anyone find an actual critique that was cause for DHing?

If you go through the various global warming threads, you will see many comments about, "ABC source/author was refuted by … XYZ" or "DEF is a science news magazine for non-scientists, not a refereed journal" with no DHing. The DHing starts with "well, that dude is a poopy-head".

Nope, Pluto is demoted for reasons I'm not 100% sure I can explain, even if I think I kind of understand them

A lot of other objects of similar size discovered in the same general orbit.
Seems a simple enough argument, the same thing happened to Ceres a couple of centuries ago.

forbid al the recent news, forbid the referring to recent news, forbid all the not wargaming related news

forbid al the recent news, forbid the referring to recent news, forbid all the not wargaming related news

The news source rule isn't related to the currency of the news article; it is related to making insulting and prejudicial statements about a source. If I were to insult Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Chronicle (out of print for over 200 years) because of the publisher's politics rather than the content of the articles or actions conducted in the publishing of those articles, it would still fall under the news source rule.

I have noticed that on TMP, one way to kill any thread is to bring miniatures into the conversation. Funny that.

Of course not Mako. The news release has been clamped down by the Oil Minister. Our state department has its hand full right now with this Iran deal. Bongolesia is just a scab they'd rather not pick at right now I'm sure.

An opinion piece is called commentary.

So is an opinion piece news or ??????

Doesn't really matter. The prohibition is on insulting and making prejudicial comments about sources, not content.

If it is news, you can't bash the author/source because of the news rule. If it's not, you can't bash the author/source because of other rules (ad hominem, notable peoples, etc.).

The new source rule is not a new or different rule. It is an instance of the general ad hominem rule, provided as clarification because people tend to act like rules lawyers.