Posting and discussing sources: a D&D feedback thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Posting and discussing sources: a D&D feedback thread

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

Cefte posted:

The only expectation I have of a posted source is that it's readable - people who post tweets which are then immediately deleted, leaving nothing but the gripping commentary of 'wow' by the poster should be permabanned.

People post 'bad' sources because 'bad' sources are a core part of our current political landscape, and even a clearly false statement in a propaganda mouthpiece is worth raising as evidence of a school of thought.

If they're relying on a 'bad' source on a point of fact, you can refute them with multiple 'good' sources. If you can't, then you're faced with a matter of opinion, and it's an awful, horrible, loving horrendous idea to suggest that moderators or IKs should be deciding that particular named sources are banned from threads - if someone keeps spamming Seth Abramson, there's an ignore function.

None of the above applies to a literal stranger off twitter (apart from the readability issue) - I think Vox's suggestion for requiring contextualisation is bang on the money for that one.

Pretty much this, the biggest issue is posting a tweet without any comment beyond 'yikes' or whatever, and then if that tweet is deleted or something it's just meaningless. I really hate the idea of mods deciding 'valid' sources because even really low bars like 'blue checks only' have some pretty embarrassing people included in it anyway. Like, yea if someone posts Dog Fart 69 saying without any article or source 'heard Biden's gonna nuke Iran tomorrow' people can just go 'I'm gonna wait for literally anyone with actual connections to validate that'.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 00:24

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:33

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

UCS Hellmaker posted:

Great example.is anyone using rt tweets or articles as a source, a propaganda arm is not something that should be considered good faith, and it be the same as someone linking breitbart articles or the daily stormer, almost certainly false or so completely out of context that the underlying quote or story is completely different from what's written.

the issue with this standard is it also means we can't post the NYT or WaPo or basically any major newspaper source, because it's been proven constantly that they've done active collusion with the US government to launder fake stories to absolute genocidal ends such as the Iraq war leadup being a constant cycling of 'anonymous sources' that turned out to be Rumsfeld's chosen mouthpieces supporting other 'anonymous sources' that turned out to be Cheney's all overtly working with the reports to launder a lie. How does that not make them as much a propaganda arm of the US government than RT is Russia's?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 21:03

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

Slow News Day posted:

This is false equivalence because state propaganda is RT's sole reason for existence. NYT and WaPo do occasionally (and usually unwittingly) act as mouthpieces of bad actors, but unlike RT, their primary goal is to act as the Fourth Estate. Indeed, they do frequently hold their own government to account, and do really important investigative work to expose the dark side of both government and corporations.

This is one of those things where you want people to be educated but just said something buck wild that even a basic amount of education on the topic would keep you from doing. You give the sources I said this weird 'well they're usually unwitting pawns' benefit when nearly every reckoning of the war leadup I was using as an example showed multiple parts of the chain of accountability, from journalists to editors to the actual head of the NYT news division were completely aware of what they were doing, so it's weird to say their 'primary goal' is to act as the fourth estate.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 00:28

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

Aruan posted:

Let's talk about specifics.

This was posted yesterday:

Except when you follow the actual link, the proposed bill is from a Republican.

After a mod pointing this out, the OP followed up with:

The original post was never edited, and no punishment was handed out. Posting a link and then saying something completely wrong about that link needs to be a heavy probation. Read the loving poo poo you post! Can we at least make this a rule and enforce it before getting into specifics about testing sources? You should be responsible for the tweets and articles you post: both in accurately summarizing what they say, and also for checking to make sure they're not garbage. If you aren't ok with that, don't post the source.

You're very angry about someone being wrong about who wrote the bill but ignoring that a greater point that's related to issues of Democratic Party values remains when you look that it's cosponsored by DWS, a major Florida Democrat, and his entire pitch is using her and a couple other dems as a way to say this ghoulish, racist, bill they support is bipartisan and good.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 01:24

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

Deteriorata posted:

The edge case here is an unsourced article from the Washington Examiner that asserts stuff based on unnamed anonymous "insiders" which no other news source corroborates.

The odds are about 99% that it's complete bullshit but there is no way to refute it directly.

That sort of thing does get posted and often causes multiple page derails of endless bickering.

If a news item is legit, you should be able to find a reference to it in something more reliable. Putting the Washington Examiner on a blacklist is reasonable.

what about Maggie Haberman who also used nothing but anonymous sources to say dumb vague poo poo like 'Trump plans something big on immigration, also he's never been more isolated'

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 16:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Posting and discussing sources: a D&D feedback thread