A blackout landing page is displayed on a laptop computer screen at the offices of the Wikipedia Foundation in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP)
Wikipedia editors voted Wednesday to bar The Daily Mail as a source of reference in its entries, saying that the news website was “generally unreliable.”
The editors said the vote in favor of the ban stemmed from the website’s “reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication.”
The Wikipedia Foundation said in a statement that editors have discussed the reputation of the Daily Mail since 2015.
“Based on the requests for comments section, volunteer editors on English Wikipedia have come to a consensus that the Daily Mail is ‘generally unreliable and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist’,” the statement read.
“This means that the Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a ‘reliable source’ on English Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are encouraged to change existing citations to the Daily Mail to another source deemed reliable by the community.
According to The Guardian, the proposal was initiated by an editor known as “Hillbillyholiday.” Other editors then weighed arguments over the possible ban for months. Those who voted against the ban said the Daily Mail was sometimes reliable and there were many other publications that were also unreliable.
News of the ban came just days after First lady Melania Trump re-filed a libel lawsuit against the corporation that publishes the Daily Mail's website for reporting rumors that she worked as an escort.
Wikipedia is reportedly relying on volunteers to scour through 12,000 links to the Daily Mail already on the website and replace them with a different source.
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