# Discuss with the mods: the future of the Café's source policy



## Amanda (May 5, 2016)

It's mod time, Café citizens.

This is about the future rules about acceptable and unacceptable sources in Café. Or rather, the uncertainty of the said rules. The mods have been negotiating about what to do about them, but we haven't reached any conclusion yet. 

As the question was left open for a while, we decided to ask you posters for your input on the matter. This won't be a poll or a referendum where the doom is decided, but where you can share your ideas about into which way the Café should be developed.

Some open questions you could consider:

- Is the current source policy ok, or would you like to see it changed. If so, then how?

- On which basis a site should be considered acceptable, aka trustworthy enough to be accepted as a Café source? For example, should it be attached to a larger newspaper/news agency? Should it be reputable among some certain circles? Should it simply be a news site where the authors' news articles go under editorial eye before publishing? 

- Should there be a permanent list of certain specific internet sites which are never allowed as sources in the Café, as there is now? 

- If yes, should the list remain as it is now, or should some items be removed from it or added to it? On which basis? Argue your case.

- Instead of a fixed list of banned sources, should there rather be a set of rules to describe acceptable sources, which would then be applied to each individual case? Note that many sites would then get de facto banned due to their own nature.

- What could go wrong? If we liberate or tighten the current policy, how will Café be destroyed? 

(For those of you who don't remember them, )

Discuss!


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## makeoutparadise (May 5, 2016)

Ads, Youtube only links, blog/opinion articles,any heavily biased sources of news, celebrity magazines, and conspiracy tabloids like  The national inquirer should all be considered banned and forbidden to post.

This keeps the cafe's credibilty, and integrity intact


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 5, 2016)

The list of banned sources is a joke, and easily the worst innovation of the previous regime.

It is absolutely absurd to exclude sources that are 'biased'. ALL news sources are biased to a greater or lesser extent, and bias/political leaning one way or the other is not a problem as long as it is disclosed beforehand.

In my opinion the criteria should only be factualness. Let news sources pass or fail on that basis.

I would also argue for including op-eds/editorials on the basis that they can provoke good discussions - and I haven't really heard the case against them - but this is a different point to the above.

Here is the list as I would have it, which is essentially my estimation of the sources that literally make things up or are not news sites.

Current Banned Source List
-No Op-Eds or Editorials
*-No youtube videos or video news in general
-No social media sites*
 -Presstv and/or the state media of authoritarian regimes
 -Russia Today
 -Al Jazeera
 -Salon
*-Infowars*
 -The Intercept
 -Huffington Post
*-Breitbart*
 -Druge Report 
 -Think Progress
*-Buzzfeed
-Jezebel
-Gawker Media*
-Pravda and Communist party sites in general
-Xinhua
 -The Blaze
 -Haaretz
 -Israelnationalnews
 -Al-Arabiya
 -The Hill
 -Electronic intifada
 -Moveon
*-Feminist Frequency*
 -Democratic Underground
*-All "Comedy News"*
 -Daily Stormer

For the few sources there that I'm not familiar with, I've erred on the side of openness and allowed them.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Son of Goku (May 5, 2016)

Amanda said:


> Some open questions you could consider:
> 
> - Is the current source policy ok, or would you like to see it changed. If so, then how?



It's fine, mostly. But that list needs updating (see below). 




> - On which basis a site should be considered acceptable, aka trustworthy enough to be accepted as a Café source? For example, should it be attached to a larger newspaper/news agency? Should it be reputable among some certain circles? Should it simply be a news site where the authors' news articles go under editorial eye before publishing?



That's a tough nut to crack. I'd say you, as mods, should trust your guts on this. Especially if a news source isn't that well known or "established" yet. If the articles are well enough written (sober, no obvious and unfactual bias, no click-bait title) and if they're based on facts, the source could be given a chance. But yeah, that kind of approach could be too 'loose' to work out well in praxis.... tough nut.




> - Should there be a permanent list of certain specific internet sites which are never allowed as sources in the Café, as there is now?
> - If yes, should the list remain as it is now, or should some items be removed from it or added to it? On which basis? Argue your case.



Having a list helps. But keeping Haaretz, the oldest and internationally most acclaimed Israeli newspaper, on that list is ridiculous. We all know why Mega did it and it has nothing to do with the quality of the source. 

Same goes for the Intercept. They have published many stories by now, that were picked up by major news sites. If these major news sites trust them, so should Narutoforums.com.

It would definitely be best if you made your own list, instead of relying on Mega's judgment.



> - Instead of a fixed list of banned sources, should there rather be a set of rules to describe acceptable sources, which would then be applied to each individual case? Note that many sites would then get de facto banned due to their own nature.



Both. The list will never be complete and you don't want to make it too long for anybody to care. The list should serve as an example for what banned sources are like.


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## Alwaysmind (May 5, 2016)

YouTube videos should not start a thread.

I  fine with banning conspiracy news websites and buzzfeed

TheOnion should be allowed once month though 


Let's be careful about bias news, sure news may have bias but it also has to be good quality. Some "bias" news simply does not know proper journalism.


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## Toby (May 5, 2016)

*Let me see if I understood your arguments so far in bite-sizes*

*@erictheking*, your argument is that we should only use news from a certified news agency or something similar, right? 

I can understand that. 

*@Son of Goku*, if we are going to have an example list of banned sources, what sort of punishment do you think is appropriate for first time and repeat offenders? After all, there's a difference between someone who misunderstands and makes a genuine mistake, versus someone who is purposefully trolling with their choice of news.

I like *@Alwaysmind*'s suggestion that funny news sources should be allowed

As with all things, as long as the same source isn't spammed all the time, I think these suggestions for rules would be good.


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## Toby (May 5, 2016)

*@makeoutparadise*, your rules sound like the old ones. Is that right? 

Only news articles should be allowed then, no videos, gossip, etc.

I think codifying this further would help. What do you consider biased? OP-eds only or specific newspapers, or both? That could affect a lot of news sources. And as pointed out, they are all biased in one form or another. What kind of bias are you against?


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## Eros (May 5, 2016)

I agree about The Onion and don't forget News8. They have some hilarious stuff. There should be a special prefix designation and should be deleted if OP forgets to add the prefix designation. 

As for allowing sites like Infowars, and their leftwing counterparts, absolutely not. We all know there are kooks in the world. Citing them as news sources is a bad idea. However, citing them for their entertainment value may be another issue open for discussion.


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## dr_shadow (May 5, 2016)

If this was 1996 I'd have signed off on the "no state media of authoritarian regimes", as back then most such countries were quite irrelevant to world politics.

But today China and Russia are major players, so knowing what goes on in those countries is important to understanding world affairs. The same can be said of Saudi Arabia, Iran and in time probably Vietnam.

Of course if the tone is obviously propagandistic it shouldn't be allowed. But if there is an important event in say China, such as a Communist Party Congress, chances are the People's Daily will be the first media on the scene and have the best access to the people involved. 

Rather than quote Reuters quoting the People's Daily, I think we should be allowed to just quote the People's Daily directly.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Son of Goku (May 5, 2016)

Toby said:


> *@Son of Goku*, if we are going to have an example list of banned sources, what sort of punishment do you think is appropriate for first time and repeat offenders? After all, there's a difference between someone who misunderstands and makes a genuine mistake, versus someone who is purposefully trolling with their choice of news.


Depends. If someone repeatedly posts threads with banned sources, in a short amount of time (like three times within a week), ignoring warnings and the closing of the threads, ban him or take away his thread posting rights (if that's possible) for a period of time, that person is asking for it. 
But if it's someone who does this once every few weeks or so, because he/she isn't a regular or simply doesn't care to read the rules about sourcing, just close the threads and that's it. 
Honest mistake or not, I don't think posting threads with banned sources warrants a punishment, unless it's really obvious trolling. Closing/deleting a thread once in a while isn't that big of a deal.


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## Dragon D. Luffy (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> The list of banned sources is a joke, and easily the worst innovation of the previous regime.
> 
> It is absolutely absurd to exclude sources that are 'biased'. ALL news sources are biased to a greater or lesser extent, and bias/political leaning one way or the other is not a problem as long as it is disclosed beforehand.
> 
> ...



There are different levels of bias. Some sources are biased because they focus on the things that push their agenda, but they don't lie. Some are biased because they outright make up facts knowing they'll get away with it because their audience is biased too.

We can't let the later be used as a source. Facts need to be right.


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## Sunuvmann (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> Current Banned Source List
> -No Op-Eds or Editorials
> *-No youtube videos or video news in general
> -No social media sites*
> ...



Some commentary on that list. Huffington Post is fine as most of their shit is just ripped from AP. They generally being a news amalgamator. Al Jazeera kinda depends on the topic. They are heavily biased in pro-sunni arab. But when not reporting on that, they're generally pretty solid. And I suppose Haaretz would fall into the same boat but ykno, pro-israel.

RT should be banned since their journalistic credibility is dubious at best. They're mostly Russian propaganda and all. RT probably should fall into that "state run media" part.
The Blaze should be banned since obvious right wing propaganda.
And Salon as well since left wing propaganda.

Drudge is a lot like HuffPo, especially since the latter is a left wing clone of it so like that, if its straight news and not editorial, I don't see a problem.

Otheriwse, I agree with most of that list.


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## Alwaysmind (May 5, 2016)

Dragon D. Luffy said:


> There are different levels of bias. Some sources are biased because they focus on the things that push their agenda, but they don't lie. Some are biased because they outright make up facts knowing they'll get away with it because their audience is biased too.
> 
> We can't let the later be used as a source. Facts need to be right.



Like I said, some news just don't know how to do good journalism, and that is made worst if they have an agenda in mind.


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## Sunuvmann (May 5, 2016)

Also, @Amanda, could you please talk with the admins and get the cafe brought up from the bloody bottom of the forum list? I haven't cafe'd much since the change because its hella inconvenient when I'm casually browsing.


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## Dragon D. Luffy (May 5, 2016)

Sunuvmann said:


> Also, @Amanda, could you please talk with the admins and get the cafe brought up from the bloody bottom of the forum list? I haven't cafe'd much since the change because its hella inconvenient when I'm casually browsing.



The NF Staff wants new people to join the forum, having them see the Cafe before they signed up would drive them away.


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## Xiammes (May 5, 2016)

The onion is the only news source I believe in.


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## Son of Goku (May 5, 2016)

Dragon D. Luffy said:


> There are different levels of bias. Some sources are biased because they focus on the things that push their agenda, but they don't lie. Some are biased because they outright make up facts knowing they'll get away with it because their audience is biased too.
> 
> We can't let the later be used as a source. Facts need to be right.



That makes a lot of sense. Take RT for example. Of course their bias towards Russia is strong and their agenda is obvious. But there are plenty of "legit" news sources in the West that have a strong bias against Russia, despite being privately owned, unlike RT. But in the end it comes down to articles being factually correct or not, but also whether the tone is 'professional'.


There isn't anything wrong with this, e.g.:



> * High-ranking Israeli general slammed for comparing Nazi Germany with Israel today *
> Published time: 5 May, 2016 13:15
> 
> 
> ...





The tone is decent, the facts are sound.


But frankly I gotten used to the RT & co. ban, so I won't mind if it stays that way. But it could be worth discussing.


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## Hand Banana (May 5, 2016)

Dragon D. Luffy said:


> The NF Staff wants new people to join the forum, having them see the Cafe before they signed up would drive them away.


Is there any statistics in improvement of membership since this has been implemented?


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 5, 2016)

Dragon D. Luffy said:


> There are different levels of bias. Some sources are biased because they focus on the things that push their agenda, but they don't lie. Some are biased because they outright make up facts knowing they'll get away with it because their audience is biased too.
> 
> We can't let the later be used as a source. Facts need to be right.


 
Yes, I made that very clear in that post.

Bias is acceptable, fabrication is not.



Sunuvmann said:


> Some commentary on that list. Huffington Post is fine as most of their shit is just ripped from AP. They generally being a news amalgamator. Al Jazeera kinda depends on the topic. They are heavily biased in pro-sunni arab. But when not reporting on that, they're generally pretty solid. And I suppose Haaretz would fall into the same boat but ykno, pro-israel.
> 
> RT should be banned since their journalistic credibility is dubious at best. They're mostly Russian propaganda and all. RT probably should fall into that "state run media" part.
> The Blaze should be banned since obvious right wing propaganda.
> ...


 
As long as 'propaganda' is another word for 'biased reporting' i.e. omission of counterfacts rather than intentional inclusion of total falsehoods, it should be part of the discussion in my opinion. The British press, and I think much of the world's press in fact, is quite openly biased on a political basis with newspapers reporting from a left or right-wing angle. Business papers on the one hand and labour papers on the other (when they still existed). It's accepted that people should read from several different papers to get a full picture. The U.S. press reports from an ostensibly completely neutral perspective which is quite unique. I say ostensible, because they are of course still biased while pretending not to be. It's almost impossible not to be.

RT, Al Jazeera, Salon etc. should not be banned for this reason.

I know 'The Blaze' is right-wing propaganda but I am not aware of them making things up like Breitbart or Infowars. Without being certain I was inclined to be generous.


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## Muah (May 5, 2016)

Evolution isnt something to take as scientific fact it was only a starting theory to get us started and show us how ridculous the concept of a christan, jew, islamic god is.


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## Amanda (May 5, 2016)

Sunuvmann said:


> Also, @Amanda, could you please talk with the admins and get the cafe brought up from the bloody bottom of the forum list? I haven't cafe'd much since the change because its hella inconvenient when I'm casually browsing.



That is the ultimate goal, or so I've been told. Café got dropped into Outskirts due to the rather boisterous culture in here. The purpose of the new more strict rule is to try to get us back up there.

But others can correct me if I'm wrong and promising too much.


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## Island (May 5, 2016)

Bias isn't inherently bad. Fabrication is.



mr_shadow said:


> But today China and Russia are major players, so knowing what goes on in those countries is important to understanding world affairs. The same can be said of Saudi Arabia, Iran and in time probably Vietnam.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Rather than quote Reuters quoting the People's Daily, I think we should be allowed to just quote the People's Daily directly.


I agree with both of these arguments.

Biased or not, knowing what state media are saying is still valuable information, at least as long as we're all aware that they're exactly that: biased articles from state media.

On the other hand, news from some conspiracy website has no business here. It's one thing for China to inflate its economic growth. It's an entirely different thing to grab news articles from the same website that accuses Obama of being a lizard person.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Hozukimaru (May 5, 2016)

I think the current policy is fine.


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## Finalbeta (May 5, 2016)

makeoutparadise said:


> Ads, Youtube only links, blog/opinion articles,any heavily biased sources of news, celebrity magazines, and conspiracy tabloids like  The national inquirer should all be considered banned and forbidden to post.
> 
> This keeps the cafe's credibilty, and integrity intact


I agree with everything transpires from this post

Reactions: Dislike 1


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## Sunuvmann (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> Yes, I made that very clear in that post.
> 
> Bias is acceptable, fabrication is not.
> 
> ...



Well RT skims the line between making shit up and bias. Their coverage of Ukraine/downed malaysian airline was evidence of such where they tried to give credibility to conspiracy theories and anything anything but that Russia was culpable.

Biased sources I think definitely should be at the very least frowned upon. Because you're using the article to make your argument for you. Which is equal parts pathetic and lazy.


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## GRIMMM (May 5, 2016)

Are the Sun and the Daily Mail banned? If not they should be.


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## Nemesis (May 5, 2016)

GRIMMM said:


> Are the Sun and the Daily Mail banned? If not they should be.



Nope and neither is the Express/Star both of which makes the Mail look reputable.


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## stream (May 5, 2016)

I'm mostly fine with the current policy. I like the no YouTube policy. I like no biased sources. I wouldn't mind op-eds, but it's not that important.

I agree that there should be both a list of banned sources, and rules on what sources are accepted. If sometimes there's a source I respect that is banned, like Haaretz, well I'll live with it.


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## Sunuvmann (May 5, 2016)

GRIMMM said:


> Are the Sun and the Daily Mail banned? If not they should be.



If I can be bothered to do so, I tend to post this in every thread where the source is the daily fail.


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## Hand Banana (May 5, 2016)

I like that vid.


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## Le Mâle-Pensant (May 5, 2016)

I'm part of those who believe all news are more or less biased and them,  write of list of banned news websites is a from a bias toward a opinion.  We should rather list the conspiracy theory websites not allowed. For news websites like RT,  it should be allowed.  It's up to people to challenge and debate on these news

Reactions: Like 1


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## Zyrax (May 5, 2016)

Le Male Absolu said:


> I'm part of those who believe all news are more or less biased and them,  write of list of banned news websites is a from a bias toward a opinion.  We should rather list the conspiracy theory websites not allowed. For news websites like RT,  it should be allowed.  It's up to people to challenge and debate on these news


Given how we have a Conspiracy Theorist mod right now...


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## Finalbeta (May 5, 2016)

I would add that it seems that the update didn't bring us many users so basically nothing changed


Will something improve by doing this?

Reactions: Dislike 1


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## Son of Goku (May 5, 2016)

Peter Pan said:


> Will something improve by doing this?


Doing what? (Re-)establish rules that make sense?


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## Finalbeta (May 5, 2016)

I thought it was for improving activity

Reactions: Dislike 1


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## Son of Goku (May 5, 2016)

Peter Pan said:


> I thought it was for improving activity



It makes sense discussing the rules regardless of whether it improves activity or not.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Seto Kaiba (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> The list of banned sources is a joke, and easily the worst innovation of the previous regime.
> 
> It is absolutely absurd to exclude sources that are 'biased'. ALL news sources are biased to a greater or lesser extent, and bias/political leaning one way or the other is not a problem as long as it is disclosed beforehand.
> 
> ...



Just a terrible idea here. People would be posting all sorts of biased shit with this. 

This weak excuse that "all things are biased" therefore it should be permissible to just open the floodgates and let all sorts of biased shit in is incredibly foolish, and incredibly ridiculous. Biases as all things, come in degrees. HuffPo is undeniably partisan in favor of liberal politics for example, and The Hill undeniably so for conservative politics. They are unreliable exactly for that reason. They will and have often presented a story that falls in  line with their blatant political favor. Every news source is subject to error and sensationalism, like CNN for example, that is a different matter from intentional political slant though.


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## Finalbeta (May 5, 2016)

Well you are right after all

Reactions: Dislike 1


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## Seto Kaiba (May 5, 2016)

It's just an awful, shitty idea that leaves one vulnerable to this Glenn Greenwald style of journalism that believes that you shouldn't only just report a story, you should try to tell the reader on what to think and feel about it too. He doesn't believe in objective journalism, and finds it a fruitless pursuit. Why would anyone leave themselves open to that kind of journalistic practice? Left-wing sources in particular have begun to follow suit with that. Look at what has happened to the Guardian!

Reactions: Like 2


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 5, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Just a terrible idea here. People would be posting all sorts of biased shit with this.
> 
> This weak excuse that "all things are biased" therefore it should be permissible to just open the floodgates and let all sorts of biased shit in is incredibly foolish, and incredibly ridiculous. Biases as all things, come in degrees. HuffPo is undeniably partisan in favor of liberal politics for example, and The Hill undeniably so for conservative politics. They are unreliable exactly for that reason. They will and have often presented a story that falls in  line with their blatant political favor. Every news source is subject to error and sensationalism, like CNN for example, that is a different matter from intentional political slant though.





Seto Kaiba said:


> It's just an awful, shitty idea that leaves one vulnerable to this Glenn Greenwald style of journalism that believes that you shouldn't only just report a story, you should try to tell the reader on what to think and feel about it too. He doesn't believe in objective journalism, and finds it a fruitless pursuit. Why would anyone leave themselves open to that kind of journalistic practice? Left-wing sources in particular have begun to follow suit with that. Look at what has happened to the Guardian!



Calling it a ridiculous idea is not an argument. Make the argument for why biased news should be censored. Without that there is nothing here for me to respond to.

"Objective journalism" is a total illusion in my opinion. That doesn't mean all journalism is _equally_ subjective, but subjectivity is literally unavoidable.


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## Hand Banana (May 5, 2016)

Actually could we ban insect threads in the cafe? I mean we had a thread recently explaining how spiders suck dick. How do we discuss that over a cup coffee?

Reactions: Like 1 | Funny 5 | Winner 1


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## Amanda (May 5, 2016)

The problem with "no biased sites" policy is that all sites have at least some bias. So where you draw the line? The danger becomes that you let your own bias dictate which bias you allow from the others. 

Truthfulness is a much simpler measurement. For example, I just know certain pro-Russia sites make stuff up and outright lie, so I can't use them as sources even to give an idea what is going on over there.



Zyrax Pasha said:


> Given how we have a Conspiracy Theorist mod right now...



I don't believe in the lizard people, Niburu, the Khazar mafia or the Illuminati, if that's what you're implying...  In fact I don't believe in much anything, unlike actual conspiracy theorists do - they have much faith in their theories. I'm simply a pathological cynic... 

And conspiracy theorists sites definitely stay banned.

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## Alwaysmind (May 5, 2016)

Amanda said:


> I don't believe in the lizard people, Niburu, the Khazar mafia or the Illuminati, if that's what you're implying...  In fact I don't believe in much anything, unlike actual conspiracy theorists do - they have much faith in their theories. I'm simply a pathological cynic...



I find it interesting that you didn't mention the flat Earth or that Paul McCartney died in 1966.


As for Nibiru, they can make convincing videos but when you think about it, Hubble can see galaxies light years away and have good pictures of our solar system but can only take a blury picture of a supposed planet a few million miles away. Kind of funny.


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## Alwaysmind (May 5, 2016)

NaS said:


> Actually could we ban insect threads in the cafe? I mean we had a thread recently explaining how spiders suck dick. How do we discuss that over a cup coffee?



Its good for the philosophy thread. Questions such as, do spiders care if a guy in a white coat films them having sex?


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## dr_shadow (May 5, 2016)

Peter Pan said:


> I would add that it seems that the update didn't bring us many users so basically nothing changed
> 
> Will something improve by doing this?



Not sure which change you are referring to, so I'll do an FAQ:

*Why was the Café moved to the bottom of the forum display?*

The people who make decisions thought the Café had a very hostile atmosphere which might scare new users away.

It used to be that the Café was one of the first sections you saw when you came in. I think it was even higher than the actual Naruto Avenue. So beginners might think this was representative of overall NF culture.

Me and Amanda are using a "tougher" moderating style than Mega in hopes of getting the Café rehabilitated.

As for the other shuffles, it was part of a plan to differentiate away from Naruto and become a more general anime/manga forum after the weekly Naruto manga ended.

*Why did Megaharrison leave?*

I honestly don't know exactly what happened. I just know that Distracted called up me and Amanda and asked if we wanted to moderate the Café in his stead.

As he is still a semi-active member he can tell you himself if he wants to.

However I suspect it may have been related to aftershocks from the above-mentioned forum shuffle and how his moderating practices may or may not have contributed to the Café's relocation. But again, it's better to ask him directly.

*Why did the look of the forum change?*

The old forum used a software platform called vBulletin 3, which was created in 2004. The people who made vBulletin 3 stopped supporting it with new patches in 2011, meaning that for the past five years there have been bugs and glitches cropping up that nobody was ever going to fix. They'd have just told us to upgrade to their current vBulletin 5.

But because those users who had tried vBulletin 5 did not like that one, we decided to use a platform called Xeniforo instead.

An obvious difference is that vBulletin 3 did not have mobile support, as smartphones were not a thing in 2004. Xenoforo on the other hand has a phone-friendly version.


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## Black Superman (May 5, 2016)

I consider TMZ and TYT to be among the more reputable sources as far as news go. Both should be allowed, imo. There should be a place for video news in the Cafe.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Banhammer (May 5, 2016)

Toby said:


> if we are going to have an example list of banned sources, what sort of punishment do you think is appropriate for first time and repeat offenders? After all, there's a difference between someone who misunderstands and makes a genuine mistake, versus someone who is purposefully trolling with their choice of news.



the only logical sanction is threadbanning, don't know if that tool is still availuable

What concerns me however, is the definition of "repeat offender". I've seen it used be the staff before to justify whatever the fuck one wants by aggregating enough abstract and subjective mapping of one's supposed behavior and citing that has a supposed "repeat behavior" and "troubling past"


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## Banhammer (May 5, 2016)

> - Should there be a permanent list of certain specific internet sites which are never allowed as sources in the Café, as there is now?



Absolutely. It helps keeping shit simple



> - If yes, should the list remain as it is now, or should some items be removed from it or added to it? On which basis? Argue your case



Definitely needs to have some entries added to it. 



ZeroTheDestroyer said:


> I consider TMZ and TYT to be among the more reputable sources as far as news go. Both should be allowed, imo. There should be a place for video news in the Cafe.




Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


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## The Faceless Man (May 5, 2016)

Everything is okay, those rules are joke either way.

You look at the banned list and you laugh.

Pointless thread.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> Calling it a ridiculous idea is not an argument. Make the argument for why biased news should be censored. Without that there is nothing here for me to respond to.
> 
> "Objective journalism" is a total illusion in my opinion. That doesn't mean all journalism is _equally_ subjective, but subjectivity is literally unavoidable.



I made the argument on why it's a shitty idea. Don't pretend that I didn't. 

Once again, a stupid foundation to justify just opening the floodgates. We know some sources to be undeniably biased, and those with situational bias or sensationalism.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 5, 2016)

Amanda said:


> The problem with "no biased sites" policy is that all sites have at least some bias. So where you draw the line? The danger becomes that you let your own bias dictate which bias you allow from the others.
> 
> Truthfulness is a much simpler measurement. For example, I just know certain pro-Russia sites make stuff up and outright lie, so I can't use them as sources even to give an idea what is going on over there.
> 
> ...


What do you mean where do you draw the line? Maybe when a source openly acknowledges and embraces its political biases? I have a feeling that some people complaining about the list don't even know the first thing about the sources in them.


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## The Faceless Man (May 5, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> Not sure which change you are referring to, so I'll do an FAQ:
> 
> *Why was the Café moved to the bottom of the forum display?*
> 
> ...




Im going to be very real with you because you posted that.

The problem is, you guess it.... the posters.

There are way to many horrible people in the cafe , including myself, i am part of the problem to...

Im not going to say names, i know you see reports on them everyday and you see their shitty personality acting superior everyday.

You need new people, smart ones like amanda, saishin...

But then you will have another problem , because the users who are the most active here are usually ( not everyone ) the ones who are terrible.

So you you shut them down and you trust a flip coin that new people will act better.

It seems to hard and way to risky that you might kill activity here.

Its basically trying to make the blender post intelectual disscusion.

Pretty hard.


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## Lucaniel (May 5, 2016)

there are very few news sites which are almost completely illegitimate without being intentional joke-sites

even breitbart's reporting is frequently grounded in reality, just slanted and cherry-picked

the question of how much slant in what direction is acceptable will ultimately be decided by the political inclinations of the mods who set the policy


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## Itachі (May 5, 2016)

ZeroTheDestroyer said:


> I consider TMZ and TYT to be among the more reputable sources as far as news go. Both should be allowed, imo. There should be a place for video news in the Cafe.



if this was anyone else i would have deemed it satire


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## Banhammer (May 5, 2016)

you need floodgates on because if you don't have them you'll just get users who shall remain nameless posting a endless parade of threads about LOOK AT ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE


However, I don't think the situation is as systematic or as dire that we can't hold a case by case basis, and revise status upon request


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 5, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> I made the argument on why it's a shitty idea. Don't pretend that I didn't.
> 
> Once again, a stupid foundation to justify just opening the floodgates. We know some sources to be undeniably biased, and those with situational bias or sensationalism.



You didn't make an argument to justify your stance that biased news sources should be censored. Again, why should they be censored for being biased, if they are reporting facts?



Seto Kaiba said:


> What do you mean where do you draw the line? Maybe when a source openly acknowledges and embraces its political biases? I have a feeling that some people complaining about the list don't even know the first thing about the sources in them.



Most English newspapers openly acknowledge their various political affiliations. Are you advocating that we ban all English news sources?

The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal (not the opinion section) report the news from a pro-business slant, but they're probably the two best newspapers in the English-speaking world. I don't see the problem with it.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Banhammer (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> You didn't make an argument to justify your stance that biased news sources should be censored. Again, why should they be censored for being biased, if they are reporting facts?



The Overton Window within they present those facts is too slanted to have an acceptable expectation of trust and credibility in which to discuss those facts.

It forces discussion into fallacious middle grounds or puts over the top onerous burdens on the dissenting voice at times where fact and fiction seem indistinguishable from a gifted enough spin doctor


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## Banhammer (May 5, 2016)

Of course, free speech being a thing, you should still be able to discuss whatever the fuck you want in some other section of NF, with free acess to all other nf users, just don't put your Fox News twitter drama next to thread about the cologne hordes of rapists.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Black Superman (May 5, 2016)

Itachі said:


> if this was anyone else i would have deemed it satire



Believe it or not, TMZ has been on a roll for awhile now. They're the first to report it, and when they do, their confirmation means something. CNN and all the other guys take their cues from TMZ as oppossed to the other way around. They've done a lot to legitimize themselves as a reliable news source.


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 5, 2016)

Banhammer said:


> The Overton Window within they present those facts is too slanted to have an acceptable expectation of trust and credibility in which to discuss those facts.
> 
> It forces discussion into fallacious middle grounds or puts over the top onerous burdens on the dissenting voice at times where fact and fiction seem indistinguishable from a gifted enough spin doctor



I'm not sure I know what you're getting at to be honest. 



Banhammer said:


> Of course, free speech being a thing, you should still be able to discuss whatever the fuck you want in some other section of NF, with free acess to all other nf users, just don't put your Fox News twitter drama next to thread about the cologne hordes of rapists.



I'm not for an "anything goes" policy across the board. I think thread content should be regulated to an extent. Threads like  and  should be trashed in my opinion for being utterly unconducive to discussion.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 5, 2016)

erictheking said:


> You didn't make an argument to justify your stance that biased news sources should be censored. Again, why should they be censored for being biased, if they are reporting facts?



Because facts can be spun to suit a particular agenda. It is stupid to out trust in sources that openly admit bias to jot do so. Since you're going to pretend I didn't make an argument the first time, sources are not infallible. Mistakes will happen, sensationalism exists, and there are degrees of biases and situational bias. That's to be expected as the ideal of objective journalism is not perfected by any news group. Sources that shun such pursuit of that ideal should have no place here. That includes sources like the HuffPo, it toes an ideological line regardless of the facts of a situation. Which opens up far too much questioning of its reliability in its reporting of the facts. Town Hall and Breitbart are the same way. 



> Most English newspapers openly acknowledge their various political affiliations. Are you advocating that we ban all English news sources?



Sure, I mentioned the Guardian before on what happens to a news source openly dictated by political ideology. 



> The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal (not the opinion section) report the news from a
> pro-business slant, but they're probably the two best newspapers in the English-speaking world. I don't see the problem with it.



Well you're just being plain dishonest that's why. Sources which specialize in the business and economics of world news are of course favorable to businesses because the world is dominated by a free market economy.


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## Punished Pathos (May 5, 2016)

ZeroTheDestroyer said:


> I consider TMZ and TYT to be among the more reputable sources as far as news go. Both should be allowed, imo. There should be a place for video news in the Cafe.





TYT 
Yeah, you're definitely an SJW.


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## Enclave (May 5, 2016)

You know, I don't see a problem with a youtube video as long as its from a legitimate news broadcast or something along those lines.  Though I'd suggest if such a video is posted then the person who posts it needs to at least give a brief overview of the story.

It can be tricky sometimes to find a non-video link to small local story.

Oh and Punished Pathos?  The Young Turks aren't _always_ going on about stupid shit.

Reactions: Like 1


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## eHav (May 6, 2016)

Seems fine as it is. Even in the allowed sources we see some articles so biased its hard to not laugh at them. its up to the cafe goers to "decide" how biased they think an article is. we cannot alow everything but we cant block everything either, comon sense should be used more


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## Wilykat (May 6, 2016)

The current policy for most parts are fine.  There should be a list of known satire sources that people needs to remember not to quote from at all because it's often faked or very badly biased.

Google has new search, try using that. If you don't see a major news site in the first page, it's probably not legit.

One example, I almost posted a news about a deaf boy who was suspended from school for "finger gun" when in fact the "finger gun" is sign language for letter L. I first read about it on facebook and  I couldn't find reputable source like ABC, CNN, or AP (Associated Press) and decided it may have originated from fake news or someone trying to publicly burn unwanted people at the offending school.


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## Alwaysmind (May 6, 2016)

Enclave said:


> You know, I don't see a problem with a youtube video as long as its from a legitimate news broadcast or something along those lines.  Though I'd suggest if such a video is posted then the person who posts it needs to at least give a brief overview of the story.
> 
> It can be tricky sometimes to find a non-video link to small local story.
> 
> Oh and Punished Pathos?  The Young Turks aren't _always_ going on about stupid shit.




Political commentary done right:



As for actual news, here is a recent one


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 6, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Because facts can be spun to suit a particular agenda. It is stupid to out trust in sources that openly admit bias to jot do so. Since you're going to pretend I didn't make an argument the first time, sources are not infallible. Mistakes will happen, sensationalism exists, and there are degrees of biases and situational bias. That's to be expected as the ideal of objective journalism is not perfected by any news group. Sources that shun such pursuit of that ideal should have no place here. That includes sources like the HuffPo, it toes an ideological line regardless of the facts of a situation. Which opens up far too much questioning of its reliability in its reporting of the facts. Town Hall and Breitbart are the same way.



I did not once suggest that biased sources should be "trusted". There is not a single news source in the world that I trust to give me the full picture of anything that happens. All news sources ought to be read with a critical mind, but useful information can still be gleaned out of a source that sticks to the facts. 



> Sure, I mentioned the Guardian before on what happens to a news source openly dictated by political ideology.



The Guardian has always been like that. The Daily Telegraph is the most biased broadsheet in England, on the Conservative side. I don't think we should ban either of them though. 



> Well you're just being plain dishonest that's why. Sources which specialize in the business and economics of world news are of course favorable to businesses because the world is dominated by a free market economy.



How am I being dishonest?  

The world is dominated by a regulated market economy. To be pro-business is to take sides - which newspapers are free to do of course.

Reactions: Agree 1 | Informative 1


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## Black Wraith (May 6, 2016)

I don't think we should have a banned list of sources but more of a guideline on what counts as news. 

Banning sources is not the best way to go as nearly all news outlets have a bias, some more than other but all of them do have a bias. The only non-bias source I can think of is the BBC.

I disagree with the banning of Youtube videos. I'm not a fan of them but as long as they're actual news like a clip from a news channel then it should be allowed. Many people prefer to watch than to read so might encourage more people to join in the Cafe.

What we should ban is gossip articles, celeb news (OMG so and so did this), articles proven to be incorrect or articles based on studies that have been debunked, anything that is posted with the sole intention of provoking flamewars (different to an article intended to start a civil debate), etc.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> What do you mean where do you draw the line? Maybe when a source openly acknowledges and embraces its political biases? I have a feeling that some people complaining about the list don't even know the first thing about the sources in them.



So Washington Post, New York Times and BBC will be banned from now on..? 

I don't think being open about your bias is a bad thing. It's worse if you try to hide them.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

I highly disagree. Sources, particularly here in the states, that have embraced their political biases have also embraced a Greenwald style of journalism where they throw away any attempt of objectivity once again. That's a poor model to follow. HuffPo once again is a heavily partisan source, it should not be trusted to present the facts in a reliable manner. Because while on occassion it can present a story in a truthful matter, there will inevitably come a point where it is in their political interests to misrepresent a story. The risk of that is too high for it to be trusted as a reliable news source. The Hill as well is a heavily partisan source. 

Mega, myself, afgpride, and a few others more familiar with the sources on the list did our individual research on each of the sources to gauge their biases and general reliability. So it's not like there was not taken into account certain sources with a known bias, as I stated before, they come in degrees. Something I would not have permitted personally for example, Mega deemed MSNBC and Fox News for as valid sources to cite from being among the three major news outlets. Others, including as well Washington Post, NYT, and BBC because for the most part they had a history of showing to at least pursue an ideal of objective journalism despite endorsement of particular candidates or parties. 

I argued personally for HuffPo to be on the banned sources list because I am extremely familiar with their method of reporting, and they are one that have shown to be more than willing to mislead and dictated more by ideology than the pursuit of objective journalism. The same with Hareetz, Breitbart, The Hill, Salon, Moveon, etc.

The fact that people are protesting the list, particularly under the idea it was simply Mega that made it, only leads me to believe they just have no idea what they are talking about and don't know anything about the sources and why they were listed.


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## makeoutparadise (May 6, 2016)

Toby said:


> *@makeoutparadise*, your rules sound like the old ones. Is that right?
> 
> Only news articles should be allowed then, no videos, gossip, etc.
> 
> I think codifying this further would help. What do you consider biased? OP-eds only or specific newspapers, or both? That could affect a lot of news sources. And as pointed out, they are all biased in one form or another. What kind of bias are you against?



things like Fox News and msnbc who are mouth pieces for the political right and left   who like being sensationalist  Ex. Overtly or directly saying things like "Minorities are the problem." and  "everybody apologize for being white."  or Clearly known State  or Religious run propaganda machines that paint governments,  regimes or favored political/religious figures  in a flattering light.

OP-eds and their internet equivalent, blogs, things that use the narratives in the first person  and base their argument on emotion rather than  being impartial and factual like real journalist should write, saying stuf like "I can't believe people can be this stupid...." "here we go again..."  "Hillary is the devil and a communist..." Ect.

These are my suggestions fine tune them as you need or ignore


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## Mider T (May 6, 2016)

Am the only one who has no idea what Peter Pan is talking about?



The Faceless Man said:


> Im going to be very real with you because you posted that.
> 
> The problem is, you guess it.... the posters.
> 
> ...


Literally spit out my drink.


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## dr_shadow (May 6, 2016)

Mider T said:


> Am the only one who has no idea what Peter Pan is talking about?



I think Peter Pan is not a native speaker of English.

Though the manifestation is unique: he/she generally has correct grammar, but writes extremely short posts with sometimes curious word choice.

It's like you could frame any Pan post and say it was a quote from Lao Zi or something.


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## Zaru (May 6, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> I think Peter Pan is not a native speaker of English.
> 
> Though the manifestation is unique: he/she generally has correct grammar, but writes extremely short posts with sometimes curious word choice.
> 
> It's like you could frame any Pan post and say it was a quote from Lao Zi or something.


I'm convinced that his posts would not be any more sensible or content-filled if he wrote entirely in italian.


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## Rain (May 6, 2016)

It is precisely those who claim they're beyond ideology that are most embedded with it, with the ruling ideology whose function is to preserve the status quo. Pretense to objectivity in such matters that directly pertain to our social life is a joke.


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## Toby (May 6, 2016)

We had this discussion in modtown before bringing it to you guys, so to those of you who are sceptics, please take this seriously. We do want your input.

Some of you have made very good proposals and the reasoning behind them is clear. Not all of you are being quite as forthcoming about your reasons for openness or censorship, though.

Let's try to frame this into a context of goals. For me, the goals for this particular rule, should be about getting more people into the Café, and building a good environment for discussion. Debates are good too, but let's try to think of the Café main section as a funnel into a debate section. Lots of people will read news, but fewer will debate it.

In that type of section, _what kind of news do we want_, and _how do we enforce the policy_?

The question about more censorship, maintaining a list, or relaxing the rules so more sources will be allowed - are all about how we will in practice apply this rule.

In my opinion, maintaining a *list of banned sources* is a bad idea. The list should be composed by informed opinions and justified based on a criteria. If that criteria is unevenly applied, or changes over time, the list loses meaning. Plus updating the list is additional work.

A *guiding principle for what is acceptable or not acceptable* is _slightly_ better than the former, since it involves making a decision based on a criteria, but requires less manual work by the mods, and there's room for interpretation and _discussion_ - which is what this section needs.

A rule *allowing only specific types of news sources* is, in my opinion, the easiest to enforce, but maybe not ideal for the current members. It also requires people to be familiar with what a news agency is, but in my experience that is easily found out by checking Wikipedia.

For example, if we _only allow news from real news agencies_, we can keep a bit of both worlds: banning social media sources, news aggregators, and non-accredited sources and blogs. But we keep the door open for videos made by the BBC, articles from The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Xinhua, Russia Today, and so on. If you don't trust Russia Today, don't read it.

In that particular system, we allow politically controlled _and_ liberated newspapers into the Café, but not sources that currently lack recognition as a news agency. We get news from democratic and non-democratic countries, basically.

In those cases, the only middleground we will need to debate are new sources that are not yet recognised as news agencies, and news aggregators. But those who find an article from CNN via Drudge Report should just link to CNN to begin with. 

Look at how  works now. They allow Russia Today but not news from Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter. I think this is the sort of open newsroom we need to become.

Example Rule
X. Post News Items in the Cafe, not Blog Posts or celebrity news
*Share news articles from news agencies, that includes digital media with an editorial staff and news focus. Blogs, news-aggregators and non-editorial news sources are not legitimate. *

*Discuss news about events, that describe who, what, where, how and why something has happened. News analysis, commentaries and editorials do not belong here. *


This is a list of sources that would be banned, in that case, as examples - but _not an exhaustive list_.

Allowed, Examples:
The Guardian - news agency
AP Reuters - news agency and producer
BBC - news agency
Al Jazeera - news agency
Russia Today - news agency

Not allowed, Examples:
Facebook - social media
Twitter - social media
Tumblr - social media
Gawker - blog
Kotaku - blog
io9 - blog
Glenn Beck - blog
Drudge Report - aggregator

Reactions: Like 3


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 6, 2016)

It's a fine line so its hard to draw but imo shit sources (like insert propoganda piece here) should be allowed as long as everyone understand that some articles need to be fact checked more often than others. Unfortunately the average poster is not likely to follow this up so some sort of guideline should exist, ideally some kind of impartial all knowing moderator should exist who can judge whether a specific poster is posting a specific source for a specific, badly intentioned reason but we can't have that either.

idk


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

Toby said:


> In my opinion, maintaining a *list of banned sources* is a bad idea. The list should be composed by informed opinions and justified based on a criteria. If that criteria is unevenly applied, or changes over time, the list loses meaning. Plus updating the list is additional work.



Hmmm...were you even around before we had to ban certain sources? Because at that time, we had all sorts of idelogues just refer to sources that catered to their poltical ideologies time and again post them here, and time and again, those sources proved biased and dubious reporting. There is a problem for example, when thread after thread made by an extreme lieral constantly pulls his sources from undeniably liberal sources like HuffPo, or ThinkProgress. Or for example with Al-Jazeera and its dubious roots reports on something related to Israel. This became a real issue, the banning of particular sources helped address that in a way, and I get an impression that whehter you realize it or not, you're going to undo that. You already have particular ideologues showing up here cheerleading this effort and it's quite something that you don't even see it.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

Nighty said:


> It's a fine line so its hard to draw but imo shit sources (like insert propoganda piece here) should be allowed as long as everyone understand that some articles need to be fact checked more often than others. Unfortunately the average poster is not likely to follow this up so some sort of guideline should exist, ideally some kind of impartial all knowing moderator should exist who can judge whether a specific poster is posting a specific source for a specific, badly intentioned reason but we can't have that either.
> 
> idk



It's exactly why the idea to remove banned sources is so flawed. You may as well just prohibit unreliable sources entirely than anlayze each article from them. What Toby is proposing ironically enough, would result in MORE work exactly for that reason.

I have seen way too many times, and have had to address more than enough times before we established a guideline of people just posting stories catering to their political interests, and trying to mislead the readers here on a narrative intentionally crafted around omission and twisting of certain facts by news sources these individuals constantly indulge iin.


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 6, 2016)

Reposting this quote because it perfectly encapsulates the whole argument for open debates and discussions and why censorship is so shit.

[The] peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
​- John Stuart Mill


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## Toby (May 6, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Hmmm...were you even around before we had to ban certain sources? Because at that time, we had all sorts of idelogues just refer to sources that catered to their poltical ideologies time and again post them here, and time and again, those sources proved biased and dubious reporting. There is a problem for example, when thread after thread made by an extreme lieral constantly pulls his sources from undeniably liberal sources like HuffPo, or ThinkProgress. Or for example with Al-Jazeera and its dubious roots reports on something related to Israel. This became a real issue, the banning of particular sources helped address that in a way, and I get an impression that whehter you realize it or not, you're going to undo that. You already have particular ideologues showing up here cheerleading this effort and it's quite something that you don't even see it.



I don't believe Mega _had to ban a news source_. I believe he chose to because he thought it was right. I never had to do this personally because I want this place to espouse a liberal democratic value of openness. Choosing censorship is counter-productive for a debate section and harms the ethos of the place. I already see that you, who criticise non-democratic countries, are espousing a non-democratic argument here. I think that type of thinking is one of the causes for less activity here, since fewer opinions are allowed. That in turn will cause fewer people to join the Café.

Personally, when I was a mod, I just managed the members' behaviour, and I think that is preferable than banning a news source. A member can be banned from making thread, lose section access, or get a full-out ban if they are spamming a section or breaking a serious rule. Posting AJ all day is spamming, but claiming the credibility of AJ is questionable should be proven. I have yet to see proof of it in this thread.

I know that if we open up the number of sources, some people will try to advance their agenda. However, as I outlined above, someone who spams the news section with only one news source several times a day or week (depends on how active our front page is), can be asked to stop, or forced to, if need be. I trust Amanda and Shadow can do that, and I'll step in if they want me to dish out punishment that only an smod can give.

However never in my years have I met a user who I could not persuaded to either spam less, be more open-minded about choosing sources, moderate their stance, or calm down over a few bans in more special cases.

The most extreme case of this in my time was the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I have seen the section swing from being pro-Israeli to pro-Palestinian, and back again to pro-Israeli. The mods have the power to moderate this by encouraging the dominant side to listen to the weaker side, by being open to new points of view. In my opinion, their job is to encourage this type of switch of mentality so people can be more open to points of view they don't have before stepping in here.

The point of a news discussion is not to convert people. We discuss in order to increase our understanding of our own and our opponent's argument and becoming able to reproduce it without creating a strawman or failing to grasp their point.

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## Alwaysmind (May 6, 2016)

erictheking said:


> Reposting this quote because it perfectly encapsulates the whole argument for open debates and discussions and why censorship is so shit.
> 
> [The] peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
> ​- John Stuart Mill



I don't think Mill would make such statements if he saw infowars or Ancient Aliens.

But on a side note. I love how you guys are debating source credibility but if someone just posts a link to a news website without quoting the story, you complain that clicking the link is too complex of a task.


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## WorkingMoogle (May 6, 2016)

Personally I would ban blogs, opinion pieces and editorials because they're not actual news.  

I'd ban video sources because they're annoying to have a discussion about (go watch this 15 minute news broadcast and come back!).

Other than that I'd allow anything but I'd also allow criticism of the source to be a valid position.


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## Banhammer (May 6, 2016)

Bias is fine, within a certain window. BBC and such. 
Not fine when its over the top, such as Huff Po or Salon or Breitbart. 

How do draw the line? Again, why must tgat be written down somewhere? Case by case basis os the way to go. 

Keeps shit simple, easly customizable and gives new users an idea of where we stand


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## makeoutparadise (May 6, 2016)

If we want the Cafe to be a good source of news, the mods will have to instil some kind of standards that are found in univerites or journalism schools.
News articles that are relatively new (within the year)
Sources that are respected and trusted by mainstream society and both poltical sides.
And nothing thats a Joke/silly, yellow journalism, frivolous and irrelevant with little to impact to cafe users lives and intrest i.e (Paris Hilton getting a new dog. Amanda Bynes  Arrested for substance abuse) this does not however include things like iconic and influencial celebrity deaths ex: ( Neil armstrong, david bowie, Prince.) or things about the Anime community like VIZ or Tokyo pop going out of buiness or changing publishers

Perhaps if we want to make standard that'll hold up to the test of time we should find amoung ourselves Law students/lawyers within the NF community and have them draft something up to the mods taste and have users react and make ajustments to it


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## Black Wraith (May 6, 2016)

This whole debate boils down to what we want the Cafe to be. Do we want it to be a place where we just read the latest news articles or do we want it to be a place where people can have a conversation and or debate with people regarding an event.

If it's the former then we should just get rid of the Cafe as there are many other better websites that do this but if it's the latter then we need to be open about where we can get articles from and then counter the article in the posts. 

I say we create the freedom to post articles from any source as long as it follows the guidelines and then let the posts flow. This is coming from a guy who has an anti-bias stance when it comes to the news but as NF is not a news agency we don't have to be so stringent.


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## Lucaniel (May 6, 2016)

Enclave said:


> Oh and Punished Pathos?  The Young Turks aren't _always_ going on about stupid shit.


they just don't have punished pathos's commitment to that goal


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## Zyrax (May 6, 2016)

Black Wraith said:


> This whole debate boils down to what we want the Cafe to be. Do we want it to be a place where we just read the latest news articles or do we want it to be a place where people can have a conversation and or debate with people regarding an event.
> .


Also people here should make there minds on whether they want the mods to have a more laissez faire approach or if they want them to meddle in discussions

Look at how the same people who were calling for Mega to crack down on "Stupid Opinions " two years ago are now saying that the Mods are meddling too much and should limit their role


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## Raiden (May 6, 2016)

I think it might be appropriate at this point to relax some of the rules on sources allowed. Might cause some controvers, but I think the Huffington Post should probably be allowed despite it's left leaning tendencies. It's considered credible by many people in the general public audience, and biased threads can be locked by discretion. Some other bans I understand but still find a bit confusing. I will say though props to all the people who have put time in to clean up the section. I don't agree with every decision, but I like that the rules were revised to at least try to be fair to all posters here.


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## Rain (May 6, 2016)

Zyrax Pasha said:


> Also people here should make there minds on whether they want the mods to have a more laissez faire approach or if they want them to meddle in discussions
> 
> Look at how the same people who were calling for Mega to crack down on "Stupid Opinions " two years ago are now saying that the Mods are meddling too much and should limit their role



Censorship policy is fine regarding those who call for violence against other ethnic groups etc.. (like Overwatch did with Roma people in one recent thread or Mael when he said he wanted to exterminate Chechnya few years ago). They could however tone down policing personal insults between users.


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## Deleted member 198194 (May 6, 2016)

I'd rather talk about the future of the Cafe's right-to-not-be-offended policy 

Not being allowed to use the term "kebab" is fundamentally more troubling than allowing a thread sourced by Breitbart


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## Mael (May 6, 2016)

Feels before reals, man.

I remember me saying that the Chinese population got to a point of over 1.5 billion by breeding like rabbits.  Shadow told me that's racist.  Chinese isn't a race.  It's a nationality.

As for Rain's remark...lol.


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## Deleted member 198194 (May 6, 2016)

Well shadow is not only from Sweden (where political correctness is a religion), he's also a sinophile.  You had no chance.


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## Zyrax (May 6, 2016)

afgpride said:


> I'd rather talk about the future of the Cafe's right-to-not-be-offended policy
> 
> Not being allowed to use the term "kebab" is fundamentally more troubling than allowing a thread sourced by Breitbart





> >muh rights
> >muh free speech
> 
> Reminder to the naive: this is an internet forum, not your local public. Freedom of speech doesn't exist under a social network regulated by a private owner.


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## Mael (May 6, 2016)

afgpride said:


> Well shadow is not only from Sweden (where political correctness is a religion), he's also a sinophile.  You had no chance.



It's true.  I can't learn the ways of Swedish jihad.


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## Deleted member 198194 (May 6, 2016)

Zyrax Pasha said:


> afgpride said:
> 
> 
> > I'd rather talk about the future of the Cafe's right-to-not-be-offended policy
> ...



Yeah, there's no right to free speech on an internet forum.  It's owned privately, which means the rules are dictated by the owner and not your country's public laws.

That's why you don't argue for mods to allow you to be potentially offensive because you're allowed to do it publicly, but because it's inherently stupid and childish otherwise.

Tryna zinger me cunt?


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

erictheking said:


> Reposting this quote because it perfectly encapsulates the whole argument for open debates and discussions and why censorship is so shit.
> 
> [The] peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
> ​- John Stuart Mill



This is just stupid.



Toby said:


> I don't believe Mega _had to ban a news source_. I believe he chose to because he thought it was right. I never had to do this personally because I want this place to espouse a liberal democratic value of openness. Choosing censorship is counter-productive for a debate section and harms the ethos of the place. I already see that you, who criticise non-democratic countries, are espousing a non-democratic argument here. I think that type of thinking is one of the causes for less activity here, since fewer opinions are allowed. That in turn will cause fewer people to join the Café.



I don't think you have any idea what censorship means then.

This is not about prohibiting certain types of stories. This is not about prohibiting certain topics of conversation. This is about taking into considering the sources used to start the conversation on certain topics, and the reliability of the stories they post.

One can, as many often do, insert their own opinion after posting the facts from a presumably reliable source. Failing to do so (taking sources into account), as I have seen too many times, taints the discussion. Because people are being fed, often intentionally, misleading information or information twisted to suit a particular purpose.

If KidTony posts from ThinkProgress for example a story that "Drone strikes kills 40," and the actual news is that over 9 of 10 of the 40 were Islamic militants and ThinkProgress leaves that out, then while it technically reported a factual statement it did so under manipulative means. To fit an ideological agenda, and to present the information as if  it conveniently fits KidTony's own thoughts on drones, that they are imprecise, indiscriminate, killing machines.

This is the same reason that I didn't and I don't open my own threads with sources that I may even agree with ideologically speaking. I think it say a lot about the people that wish to do so, I've already seen the Greenwald logic that objectivity is something pointless to strive for.



> Personally, when I was a mod, I just managed the members' behaviour, and I think that is preferable than banning a news source. A member can be banned from making thread, lose section access, or get a full-out ban if they are spamming a section or breaking a serious rule. Posting AJ all day is spamming, but claiming the credibility of AJ is questionable should be proven. I have yet to see proof of it in this thread.



That was years ago, and many things changed. Such as for example, the continuous posting from sources whose dishonesty was proven time and again became an issue, and those people became an issue because time and again they were shown to be aware of such dishonesty. Yet because it fit their ideological mold, they didn't care.



> I know that if we open up the number of sources, some people will try to advance their agenda. However, as I outlined above, someone who spams the news section with only one news source several times a day or week (depends on how active our front page is), can be asked to stop, or forced to, if need be. I trust Amanda and Shadow can do that, and I'll step in if they want me to dish out punishment that only an smod can give.



I think the list of prohibited sources is fine as it is.  The recommended sources are merely just that. Neither is a complete list. It really saves the trobule of having to meticulously go article by article of sources we already know to be dubious, and instead referring to sources that have a better reputation of pursuing obejctivity.

I trust Amanda to do it, not shadow.



> However never in my years have I met a user who I could not persuaded to either spam less, be more open-minded about choosing sources, moderate their stance, or calm down over a few bans in more special cases.



Well you have never met Perserverance, Al-Mudari, or Savior. What I am getting here is that your experiences are just too outdated considering the changes that went on the last time you were active here.



> The most extreme case of this in my time was the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I have seen the section swing from being pro-Israeli to pro-Palestinian, and back again to pro-Israeli. The mods have the power to moderate this by encouraging the dominant side to listen to the weaker side, by being open to new points of view. In my opinion, their job is to encourage this type of switch of mentality so people can be more open to points of view they don't have before stepping in here.



That sounds like the Debate Corner.

Furthermore, how can you expect a person to get a reliable perspective or form one when they are fed misleading information or information through an ideological lens? Your desires for the Cafe does not match up with your advocacy of posting ideologically slanted sources as the main source of information on these topics.


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## Black Wraith (May 6, 2016)

Zyrax Pasha said:


> Also people here should make there minds on whether they want the mods to have a more laissez faire approach or if they want them to meddle in discussions
> 
> Look at how the same people who were calling for Mega to crack down on "Stupid Opinions " two years ago are now saying that the Mods are meddling too much and should limit their role



Mods should make sure that people follow the guidelines and stop abuse/flaming/flame baiting. They shouldn't close threads for being against what they believe in or what they view as a stupid opinion.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

They should close a thread that uses unreliable sourcing, and that unreliable sourcing used to peddle misleading information. You people are trying to conflate that simple matter into some ridiculousness about censoring of opinion or of particular discussions.


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## IAmRightYouAreWrong (May 6, 2016)

Dragon D. Luffy said:


> There are different levels of bias. Some sources are biased because they focus on the things that push their agenda, but they don't lie. Some are biased because they outright make up facts knowing they'll get away with it because their audience is biased too.
> 
> We can't let the later be used as a source. Facts need to be right.


I agree. As long as the source is factual, then it should be used. I think it's prety hard if not impossible  to find sources that are 100% unbiased.


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## IAmRightYouAreWrong (May 6, 2016)

NaS said:


> Actually could we ban insect threads in the cafe? I mean we had a thread recently explaining how spiders suck dick. How do we discuss that over a cup coffee?


 
Lol seriously? Can you direct me to that thread?


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 6, 2016)

@Toby @Amanda @mr_shadow when do you expect a decision/announcement will be made on this?

Reactions: Like 1


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## Gunners (May 6, 2016)

I don't think a thread should be immediately closed if it comes from a poor source. The moderator should seek to amend the OP with a reliable, using a quick google search. If a credible source cannot be found, the thread should be locked. Regardless of the outcome, the thread starter should be advised, warned if it is a continuous problem with the user, and have their thread making privilege revoked if they continue.


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## dr_shadow (May 6, 2016)

erictheking said:


> @Toby @Amanda @mr_shadow when do you expect a decision/announcement will be made on this?



Shouldn't take more than one or two days, hopefully.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Hozukimaru (May 6, 2016)

Just looked at the sources on all the news threads on the first page of the Cafe and I found:
6 from MSN, 5 from BBC, 4 from CNN, 4 from Reuters and 3 from Guardian. The other sources were used only 2 times or less. Since we know that sites like MSN just copy-paste articles from other sources, after looking into the original sources the list looks like this: 6 from BBC, 6 from Reuters, 4 from CNN and 3 from Guardian.


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## Son of Goku (May 6, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> If KidTony posts from ThinkProgress for example a story that "Drone strikes kills 40," *and the actual news is that over 9 of 10 of the 40 were Islamic militants* and ThinkProgress leaves that out, then while it technically reported a factual statement it did so under manipulative means.



The "actual news"? What makes it "actual", the fact that it relies on info from the Pentagon/White House? It's not like reporters went to visit the site, counted the body pieces and were able to tell bad guy from good guy, right?!

Don't talk about objectivity, Seto. You're in no position to do that.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

How about making it mandatory to name your source in the thread title, so people can save a click and avoid the sources they have an issue with? Would this idea gather any support?

Reactions: Like 1


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

You've been caught just as many times as Tony or Savior on blatantly posting misinformation to suit a particular point, Son of Goku.

Maybe, when not only the Pentagon or the White House reports it, but separate parties as well, but this is not a platform for your stupid grudges against me.


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## NO (May 6, 2016)

Toby said:


> A *guiding principle for what is acceptable or not acceptable* is _slightly_ better than the former, since it involves making a decision based on a criteria, but requires less manual work by the mods, and there's room for interpretation and _discussion_ - which is what this section needs.
> 
> A rule *allowing only specific types of news sources* is, in my opinion, the easiest to enforce, but maybe not ideal for the current members. It also requires people to be familiar with what a news agency is, but in my experience that is easily found out by checking Wikipedia.


I was asked to throw in my 2 cents for the Cafe's source rule so here's what I think, based on what I've read here.

What I am most intrigued about is why you're asking Cafe posters to decide the rule. The next thing I'm intrigued about is why you're pretending to have not reached a conclusion regarding the source.

The problem, as evinced by the posts in this thread, is that there is no source rule that is unanimously agreed upon. The Cafe mods already have the strong opinion that they're fair about what they feel is appropriate or inappropriate in this section, so instead of trying to develop a very specific source rule with the posters, just do what you are actually trying to do and have always planned to do: trash the terrible news threads and keep the good ones. There is no "guiding principle." As long as there has been Cafe mods, there has always been posters here that told those mods their "guiding principle" is a bunch of bullshit. So, yes, in the end, it's always going to be a mod's call - and depending on the subject/site/time of day, the mod will feel differently about the source.

The fact is, sometimes a shitty news site is _actually _the _first _place to report the news and sometimes that source is _actually _accurate. Does this always happen? Rarely. But if Kotaku is the first place on the internet to receive a leak of the new PS4 controller using a private and direct tipper, then that should be a valid source regardless of someone's predispositions for the Gawker company or the blogging platform - *it is still fucking news*.

My solution is pretty simple and with the power of the XF platform, Cafe mods will not have much trouble with this: Threads created in this section should require Approval by a mod before they can publicly appear. Using the alert system, a mod can quickly find out that a thread is awaiting approval and they can pass judgement, just like mods have always done, since the beginning.

If this is too much restriction and too slow, then stop complaining about sources, keep doing what you've always done, and let the threads get trashed on a delayed process instead of trying to make sure this section's sources are 100% high quality in real time. 

An intricate and specific source rule is unbelievable.


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## Toby (May 6, 2016)

I have never seen an objective news source, but I have met plenty of people who think they're objective.

Every source has an ideology, @Seto Kaiba. You have yet to tell me what your criteria is for a reliable and banned source. I expect that argument to be fully explained before I give it another thought.

NYT has an American liberal attitude, Guardian is a British leftist newspaper, and The Wall Street Journal is conservative.

I think they should all be allowed because they are real news sources with editorial staff who want you to be informed, and care about preserving their credibility. The fact that they recognise each other as news sources is the very reason I want us to use news agency status and recognition as a criteria here. The only reason I want to add news source from non-democratic sources is that democratic media are often interested in and willing to hear what Russian and Chinese media think. It is a way to learn what is happening in the non-democratic world.

As for everything inbetween, the far left in the US and far right in the US, the only thing that matters to me is that it's a _recognised _news agency. Blogs are not allowed, but Mother Jones should be. An equally ideological conservative magazine should be allowed too, but not aggregators like Kotaku (blog) or Breitbart. Christian Science Monitor is conservative enough in my opinion, and a pretty strong voice for conservatives in the US.

Here's my opinion of opinions so far given in this thread, and my attempt to clarify what they want. The majority want something else than current rules and old (Vash = Tomato Sauce) rules.

EDIT: I do hear you @jayjay³² , and we do care what you think. I don't think all the mods are already in agreement here on what the policy should be. We are taking your input, but not letting the majority decide. I'm sure the mods will respect that majority opinion though, and try to accommodate it. I think you're lucky to impact the rule-making, because I haven't seen this done by Café mods before, in all my years here. 

_Votes according to posts so far_ 

*Old regime - Tomato Sauce rules*
makeoutparadise
Peter pan

*Something else (no editorials or blogs)*
erictheking
Raiden - lax the rules, allow HuffPo
Workingmoogle - ban blogs, editorials, and opinion pieces

*Banned sources list - Mega's rules*
Son of Goku - keep, but remember to update list
Grimm - add Sun and Daily Mail
Nemesis - add Express and Star
stream - will live with banned sources
Wilykat - okay
Seto Kaiba - we should pursue journalistic objectivity - definition needed

*Other (not clearly defined yet)*
Alwaysmind - ban videos and conspiracy theories
Sunuvmann - credibility, but not aggregators or politically funded sources
nas - stats on what happened to our traffic before and after we were lowered in the forum ranking?
Island - fabrication of facts matters, not bias. - some propaganda okay, but not that which is outside our perceived field of acceptance
Le male - instead, let's make a list of conspiracy sites
Zyrax pasha - thinks we have a conspiracy theorist mod now
Zero - vids, TMz and TYT should be allowed
Banhammer - okay with banned list, wants threadban for offenses against that rule
The faceless man - makes no vote in favour of either system, okay wit hcurrent setup
lucaniel think current mods will set policy anywya, regardless of whats right
Enclave - okay with any news as long as its from valid news source, includes video
Black wraith - against banned list
Rain - everyone is biased
Nighty - allow biased source if people udnerstand they are biased
Dragon D Luffy - facts need to be right, not misrepresented
Iamrightyouarewrong - allow factual sources
Gunners - if the source is unreliable, the mod should look for a credible source - if it exists, the thread stays open, otherwise it gets locked

Reactions: Like 2


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

jayjay³² said:


> I was asked to throw in my 2 cents for the Cafe's source rule so here's what I think, based on what I've read here.
> 
> What I am most intrigued about is why you're asking Cafe posters to decide the rule. The next thing I'm intrigued about is why you're pretending to have not reached a conclusion regarding the source.
> 
> ...




Answers to the questions that intrigued you:

1) We aren't letting the Café posters to decide the rules, we're asking what they think. It might weight in our final verdict, if people argue their case well, or if there's general consensus on some issue.

2) Some of the mods have strong opinions, but they don't necessarily share the same opinions. We're pretending to not to have reached a conclusion because we haven't reached a conclusion.


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## Mael (May 6, 2016)

It's a friggin' Scandie overload.  We've got a Finn, a Swede, and a Norwie.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

Mael said:


> It's a friggin' Scandie overload.  We've got a Finn, a Swede, and a Norwie.




Well there's always room for one Canadian if you want more New World blood in the mix....


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## Mael (May 6, 2016)

Fuck that noise.


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## Toby (May 6, 2016)

@Mael what's your actual opinion on this policy? Stop shitposting


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## Enclave (May 6, 2016)

We should get a Canadian mod just to annoy Mael.

Anyways, what are the current mods thoughts on videos that are actually news?


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## Lucaniel (May 6, 2016)

> lucaniel think current mods will set policy anywya, regardless of whats right


there is no right position
there's no either/or on credibility, there's a spectrum


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## Lucaniel (May 6, 2016)

afgpride said:


> I'd rather talk about the future of the Cafe's right-to-not-be-offended policy
> 
> Not being allowed to use the term "kebab" is fundamentally more troubling than allowing a thread sourced by Breitbart


this is worth more discussion than the ultimately irreconcilable differences on what's a good source and what isn't


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## Toby (May 6, 2016)

Lucaniel said:


> this is worth more discussion than the ultimately irreconcilable differences on what's a good source and what isn't



I agree

However, imagine I was the asshole editor of low_budget_philosophy and was offering you a chance to hit the front page

The caveat is I need your article abstract in the next 24 hours. Can you make it for me, baby? Plz

@Enclave we did have funkmasterswede, and I lived in Canadia for almost 5 years, so I'm gonna take honorary Beaver-beater title for myself


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## Son of Goku (May 6, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> You've been caught just as many times as Tony or Savior on blatantly posting misinformation to suit a particular point, Son of Goku.
> 
> Maybe, when not only the Pentagon or the White House reports it, but separate parties as well, but this is not a platform for your stupid grudges against me.



Or yours against me and others.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

Enclave said:


> Anyways, what are the current mods thoughts on videos that are actually news?




Videos aren't considered for approval, and based on this thread, there isn't much public demand for it either.

Would you like to argue for their approval?


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## Mael (May 6, 2016)

Toby said:


> @Mael what's your actual opinion on this policy? Stop shitposting



Hush you.

I'm actually for credible sources.  I know some have their slants like Fox or Guardian or Huff but ultimately there's SOME objective reporting.  Things like InfoWars are complete shit.



Enclave said:


> We should get a Canadian mod just to annoy Mael.
> 
> Anyways, what are the current mods thoughts on videos that are actually news?



Depends.  Dyna and afgpride are Canucks and they're legit.

But if I know it's an attempt to troll it's not as effective.


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## Toby (May 6, 2016)

Mael said:


> Things like InfoWars are complete shit.




I am sure that no matter what rule we agree on here, we'll definitely purge aggregators and conspiracy theory buggeroo

Seriously, noone here is arguing in favour of horoscopes and flat earth 

"Serious news sources" seems to be a popular opinion, but what shall we define it as? This is why I prefer "news agency status".

What other ways can we recognise a serious news source? Guys cmon


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## Lucaniel (May 6, 2016)




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## Enclave (May 6, 2016)

Amanda said:


> Videos aren't considered for approval, and based on this thread, there isn't much public demand for it either.
> 
> Would you like to argue for their approval?


I already did earlier.  Here's the relevant part of the post.



Enclave said:


> You know, I don't see a problem with a youtube video as long as its from a legitimate news broadcast or something along those lines.  Though I'd suggest if such a video is posted then the person who posts it needs to at least give a brief overview of the story.
> 
> It can be tricky sometimes to find a non-video link to small local story.



There are certainly instances where there isn't necessarily easy or even possible to find a non-video link to a story.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

Enclave said:


> I already did earlier.  Here's the relevant part of the post.
> 
> 
> 
> There are certainly instances where there isn't necessarily easy or even possible to find a non-video link to a story.



Sorry I had overlooked your post. 

I know what you mean, but if it's such a small local piece of news it has no written article about it anywhere, is it really worth making a Café thread about?

The most common argument against videos is that it’s unfair to expect people to watch a 30 mins video to get the news. Of course you could argue against that it could be a really short video... But then there wouldn't be much content in it, would there?


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## Enclave (May 6, 2016)

Thus the point of if somebody posts a video then they should post a summary to give a brief overview.  Also, news videos from legitimate sources?  Rarely are anywhere even close to that long.

Also, since when does a news story need to have significance beyond a local area to be worthy of being discussed in the Café?  I wouldn't say I encounter such a story very often but there have been a couple of times over the years where I have and was unable to find a written version of the story and thus didn't post something that I would have felt made an interesting story.

Really this all goes back to the idea of banned sources, this is in the same boat.  Though, I'd actually think people having to write a brief overview of a video would actually be enough to get people to only post such a video when they really think it's interesting.


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## Mider T (May 6, 2016)

Amanda said:


> Videos aren't considered for approval, and based on this thread, there isn't much public demand for it either.
> 
> Would you like to argue for their approval?


Never ask a Cafer to argue just to arguement's sake, they'll jizz in their pants (or peel) before you finish your statement.


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## Krory (May 6, 2016)

Amanda said:


> I know what you mean, but if it's such a small local piece of news it has no written article about it anywhere, is it really worth making a Café thread about?



Damn, that's racist as shit.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

Enclave said:


> Thus the point of if somebody posts a video then they should post a summary to give a brief overview.  Also, news videos from legitimate sources?  Rarely are anywhere even close to that long.
> 
> Also, since when does a news story need to have significance beyond a local area to be worthy of being discussed in the Café?  I wouldn't say I encounter such a story very often but there have been a couple of times over the years where I have and was unable to find a written version of the story and thus didn't post something that I would have felt made an interesting story.
> 
> Really this all goes back to the idea of banned sources, this is in the same boat.  Though, I'd actually think people having to write a brief overview of a video would actually be enough to get people to only post such a video when they really think it's interesting.




Points considered. I'll discuss this with the others.



Mider T said:


> Never ask a Cafer to argue just to arguement's sake, they'll jizz in their pants (or peel) before you finish your statement.



Their jizz can't pass through the internet, so let them.



Jubilee said:


> Damn, that's racist as shit.




Only if it's a POC majority locality.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

Toby said:


> I have never seen an objective news source, but I have met plenty of people who think they're objective.



This is getting tiresome. As I stated like three times already, the pursuit of such is perfected by no news source. Yet the sources that should be relied upon are those that have established a reputation of at least trying to pursue that ideal. I'm sure you know the difference between advocacy journalism and objective journalism. A lot of sources like the Huffingtpon Post embrace the former, a source like NYT tries to and has a reputation of, embracing the latter.



> Every source has an ideology, @Seto Kaiba. You have yet to tell me what your criteria is for a reliable and banned source. I expect that argument to be fully explained before I give it another thought.



Already did. A source that openly acknowledges and embraces its political bias in its reporting, and one that even more if you need elaboration, seeks to purport its political ideologies over reporting of the facts in an accurate or honest manner. 



> NYT has an American liberal attitude, Guardian is a British leftist newspaper, and The Wall Street Journal is conservative.



I'm getting the impression my posts are being responded to but not read at this point...



> I think they should all be allowed because they are real news sources with editorial staff who want you to be informed, and care about preserving their credibility. The fact that they recognise each other as news sources is the very reason I want us to use news agency status and recognition as a criteria here. The only reason I want to add news source from non-democratic sources is that democratic media are often interested in and willing to hear what Russian and Chinese media think. It is a way to learn what is happening in the non-democratic world.



It's a mistake to refer directly from those non-democratic sources though. People will get their information or rely on the story posted in the original post of a thread for information on a particular matter. That is why the opening source is so important.



> As for everything inbetween, the far left in the US and far right in the US, the only thing that matters to me is that it's a _recognised _news agency. Blogs are not allowed, but Mother Jones should be. An equally ideological conservative magazine should be allowed too, but not aggregators like Kotaku (blog) or Breitbart. Christian Science Monitor is conservative enough in my opinion, and a pretty strong voice for conservatives in the US.



I disagree on Mother Jones or equivalents. Open, unambiguous, and embraced bias should not be encouraged in our sources.

Christian Science Monitor isn't conservative. WSJ is aligned with _economic_ positions. As for the NYT, it has been claimed by some of its staff to have a liberal bias on particular social issues, yet it's also been criticized of a conservative bias on occassion. 

I already went over this however...



Son of Goku said:


> Or yours against me and others.



You're just an example of my point here, nothing more.


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## Amanda (May 6, 2016)

Seto, I think the difference between your stance and Toby's is that you would want reliable news only to have Café be reliable as a source as well, while Toby would be interested in not only news about what has happened, but in the narratives different agents on this world would want to tell us. It's a different approach to news reading that relies heavily on our media reading skills. If I get him right.


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## Unlosing Ranger (May 6, 2016)

Can we make the onion our exclusive news source? It's so credible.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 6, 2016)

Amanda said:


> Seto, I think the difference between your stance and Toby's is that you would want reliable news only to have Café be reliable as a source as well, while Toby would be interested in not only news about what has happened, but in the narratives different agents on this world would want to tell us. It's a different approach to news reading that relies heavily on our media reading skills. If I get him right.



I only care about the reliability of the source of the opening post. If someone wants to cite some ideologue source after that to continue the discussion, I don't see the issue. The credibility of such will be scrutinized by the people choosing to respond to it. I think it's a mistake however to rely on the latter sources ability to adhere to objectivity to introduce the audience to a particular issue or story.

Making another example. There was a thread sometime back that reported on pedophilia being reclassified in the lists of mental disorders and mental illnesses. Now the opening source in question made it seem like pedophilia was not only being removed entirely as a mental dysfunction, but this would soon open possibility that pedophilia was on its way to being recognized as a legal orientation. The entire discussion was tainted from that point onward, because people used that source relying on it with the assumption tat it reported the facts in an honest manner. Yes, factually speaking, it was reclassified among the orders of mental illnesses and disorders, and technically as an orientation, but it was reported in a way that played on people's fears.


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## Mirage (May 6, 2016)

This site is good shit with XF.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 6, 2016)

Gunners said:


> I don't think a thread should be immediately closed if it comes from a poor source. The moderator should seek to amend the OP with a reliable, using a quick google search. If a credible source cannot be found, the thread should be locked. Regardless of the outcome, the thread starter should be advised, warned if it is a continuous problem with the user, and have their thread making privilege revoked if they continue.



something like this sounds like a good equillibirum.


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## lizardo221 (May 7, 2016)

A list would be a poor idea since you have no way of objectively creating it (let me know when a mod is foolish enough to claim that he or she is a perfect being with all the knowledge in the universe perfectly weighted in his or her mind). And don't say popular vote either - same problem as with the mods, and you put all yourselves in an ivory tower where you only hear things that don't make your tummy hurt.

Frankly, I would simply require all threads to have a source at the beginning or end of the heading so that members can glance and quickly use their own judgement to decide whether or not this is something they want to read. SO, if I post from Huffington Post "Hillary Outed as a Man", I have to add somewhere "(Huffington Post)" so I can quickly say to myself _"Won't read that, I only get my news from 4chan!"_


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## Toby (May 7, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Already did. A source that openly acknowledges and embraces its political bias in its reporting, and one that even more if you need elaboration, seeks to purport its political ideologies over reporting of the facts in an accurate or honest manner.



I'd say your criteria of _honesty _is the most troubling, because that cannot be objectively determined in all cases. Sometimes a news source withholds info or refuses to publish on a topic, but knowing whether that is for an ethical or unethical reason is not something I'd count on our regulars or mods to know all the time. 
_
Reliability _is a useful criteria, if f.ex a news source was routinely fabricating facts, but you would need to prove that they do in fact fabricate news, and that they do so often enough that they should be banned.

Another way of determining reliability could be the source's ability to cover facts, or uncover them. But I don't see how either honesty or reliability tie in to the ideological connection.

Accurate news reporting is objective journalism in this case. I'm all for that. But saying you can objectively determine honesty in news is dubious. There's not necessarily a connection between how ideological a news source is and its reliability. Recognised news agencies tend to be able to produce both reporting and analysis of events and be honest about their ideological intentions without attempting to mislead with facts.

Let's use The Guardian as an example of this because it is on the list of banned sources and clearly a reputable source if you ask any journalism organisation in the world.

The Guardian is a recognised news agency that routinely wins , so if you care about quality journalism, they have it. They were one of the first sources to break the news about the  (with the Washington Post) and the , while the New York Times was one of the last sources to get involved.

To me, that proves the Guardian should be allowed, using the criteria of reliability - and they are a recognised news source. 

Right there's an example of quality journalism and being better than a news source you think is okay for this section - in terms of informing people about facts and events. Did the ideology of The Guardian get in  the way of this reporting? Nope.

I now want to see an example of what makes The Guardian either unreliable or dishonest or both - in your own words - and why that means they should remain on the list of banned sources.


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## Zyrax (May 7, 2016)

Can someone tell me about what were the stances of Tomato(and that Jello Person) on sources? 
I was only here since 2014


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## dr_shadow (May 7, 2016)

Reliability I guess can be measured by consensus.

If a lot of different media, preferably in different countries, all independently report that something happened, then most likely it did happen.

While if something is only in one outlet and nowhere else, it's liable to be fake or distorted.

"Truth is what the majority agrees is true"


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## KidTony (May 7, 2016)

Some list of banned sources is fine, the problem is when one guy (ie:Mega) goes all dictator and is judge, jury and executioner on which sources are banned and which aren't. A great deal of his list was all personal bias. Have all cafe moderators, and even admins agree on which sources should be banned. That's best solution imo.

As for me, Haaretz and the Intercept have no business being banned, and the guardian being banned is downright laughable.

Also, i'd like to add my voice to those who argue there's no such thing as unbiased journalism. What's important is disclosure of that bias, imo.

Reactions: Like 2


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## KidTony (May 7, 2016)

Gunners said:


> I don't think a thread should be immediately closed if it comes from a poor source. The moderator should seek to amend the OP with a reliable, using a quick google search. If a credible source cannot be found, the thread should be locked. Regardless of the outcome, the thread starter should be advised, warned if it is a continuous problem with the user, and have their thread making privilege revoked if they continue.



Also, this.


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## Hand Banana (May 7, 2016)

To be honest i used to be for the banned list. But at this point i just say let the mods do their jobs and close threads that get out of hand. It just means the mods need to be more active. No one actually forces us to click threads. I do believe we should limit the number of threads people can create. We have a few posters who would literally post five to seven threads a day. Limit it to no more than three would be idea.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Hand Banana (May 7, 2016)

IAmRightYouAreWrong said:


> Lol seriously? Can you direct me to that thread?


Yea.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 7, 2016)

Toby said:


> I'd say your criteria of _honesty _is the most troubling, because that cannot be objectively determined in all cases. Sometimes a news source withholds info or refuses to publish on a topic, but knowing whether that is for an ethical or unethical reason is not something I'd count on our regulars or mods to know all the time.



But people can gauge bias in the reporting of a news source. Most did not know for example, about Fox News' ties that affirmed its conservative bias, but it is something people initially began to suspect after a while. I do trust the average member to be able to detect something like that.



> _Reliability _is a useful criteria, if f.ex a news source was routinely fabricating facts, but you would need to prove that they do in fact fabricate news, and that they do so often enough that they should be banned.



I think profession of blatant political ideology should do more than enough to put their reliability into question. Also, btw, HuffPo is an aggregate news source just as the conservative ones you say should be prohibited. The issue with them is how anyone can contribute an article to them and they often mix their opinion articles with something that may be a reliable or accurately written article. Furthermore, the articles they most prominently feature are ones that are more politcally aligned with themselves and its founder. Moveon, ThinkProgress, MediaMatter, and obviously TYT are the same way.



> Another way of determining reliability could be the source's ability to cover facts, or uncover them. But I don't see how either honesty or reliability tie in to the ideological connection.



Maybe because political and ideological interests can and often does at times come into conflict with pursuit or disclosing of the truth?



> Accurate news reporting is objective journalism in this case. I'm all for that. But saying you can objectively determine honesty in news is dubious. There's not necessarily a connection between how ideological a news source is and its reliability. Recognised news agencies tend to be able to produce both reporting and analysis of events and be honest about their ideological intentions without attempting to mislead with facts.



There's often a strong connection, particularly on how open and how strongly the source embraces its political bias. The older, more established ones, yes. 24-hour news kind of changed that, and 'advocacy journalism' changed that even moreso. We know well of Fox News' tv reporting for example, and how misinformed the average viewer of that is compared to the average news watcher; MSNBC yields similar results in turn. For both, regular viewers tend to indulge in sources that cater to their specific ideologies. So a conservative viewer of Fox will indulge in sources like InfoWars, Drudge Report, The Hill, The Blaze, etc. and liberal viewers of MSNBC will indulge in HuffPo, MediaMatters, and the TYT to name a few.



> Let's use The Guardian as an example of this because it is on the list of banned sources and clearly a reputable source if you ask any journalism organisation in the world.
> 
> The Guardian is a recognised news agency that routinely wins , so if you care about quality journalism, they have it. They were one of the first sources to break the news about the  (with the Washington Post) and the , while the New York Times was one of the last sources to get involved.
> 
> To me, that proves the Guardian should be allowed, using the criteria of reliability - and they are a recognised news source.



Well, I didn't recommend the Guardian on the prohibited sources, I was quite certain that along with Fox and MSNBC, it was among the allowed. I've noticed a clear deterioration in the stories they choose to report and the writers they've chosen in the past year or so however. Additionally, tabloids can and have been the first to break many political scandals and stories, that does not make them any more reputable. I don't think that's a good argument to lean on. I do recognize its accomplishments in journalism however. Why do you seem to argue as if the sources listed were done at random? We looked at all these sources and gauaged their accomplishments and reliability with an ideological slant, if any, that they professed to. 

http://www.theguardian.com/film/201...awakens-feminism-bechdel-test-lesbian-culture

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments

Most of its insanity is contained in its opinion section so I don't see a need for alarm.



> Right there's an example of quality journalism and being better than a news source you think is okay for this section - in terms of informing people about facts and events. Did the ideology of The Guardian get in  the way of this reporting? Nope.
> 
> I now want to see an example of what makes The Guardian either unreliable or dishonest or both - in your own words - and why that means they should remain on the list of banned sources.



Refer to previous statement.



KidTony said:


> Some list of banned sources is fine, the problem is when one guy (ie:Mega) goes all dictator and is judge, jury and executioner on which sources are banned and which aren't. A great deal of his list was all personal bias. Have all cafe moderators, and even admins agree on which sources should be banned. That's best solution imo.
> 
> As for me, Haaretz and the Intercept have no business being banned, and the guardian being banned is downright laughable.
> 
> Also, i'd like to add my voice to those who argue there's no such thing as unbiased journalism. What's important is disclosure of that bias, imo.



I had a discussion about you and posted exactly why Hareetz was unreliable. They spouted a mantra that puts them directly at odds with being trusted to honestly report on a story.

Mega actually listened to people then, and took their input on what was unreliable and what was not. It's funny, the people I'm seeing whining about the list never even bothered to participate and the way they go off shows they have no idea how the list was formed. He added his own sources to the lists, but again, neither were ever meant to be complete lists.


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## jetwaterluffy1 (May 7, 2016)

Toby asked what kind of "punishment" there should be for offenders of this rule. I don't think bans or anything like that are a good idea. Using a bad source should just end with your thread getting locked, perhaps alongside a PM linking to the rules. Perhaps if it looks like the only thing anyone is going to post is threads with bad sources, a removal of thread-making abilities might be appropriate, but in the vast majority of cases this shouldn't be necessary.

I think blogs might be worth including if they cover a specialist topic and are run by such a specialist, and aren't exceedingly biased. (What I mean by "exceedingly biased", by example, is that for fundamental theoretical physics Lubos Motl and Matt Strassler are both specialists, but one is exceedingly biased in his blog posts and the other isn't.)

Also, I think is it good practice (although maybe this shouldn't be a hard rule) to, when posting a news story which is mostly based on something publicly available in english (be it a scientific paper, a press release, a photograph, etc), post the thing it is based on as well in the OP so people can look at the main primary source for the story.

On newspapers with a stated political stance: that stance is supposed to be confined mostly to editorials, not news pieces. They might decide _which_ news pieces to report with their own bias, but that bias is already built in to having Cafe members deciding which thread to post, so is largely irrelevant.

On the BBC and impartiality, all British television news (including BBC, Sky News, ITV News etc) is by law supposed to be impartial. In practice, this means a proper representation of the views of the public _in Britain._ As far as I can see, they don't seem to feel particularly obliged to represent views held overseas. The policy of the BBC is that the same impartiality is supposed to be extended to their online articles, but I don't know whether this is something they are legally obliged to do, it certainly isn't true that legal restriction applies for Sky and co.


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## KidTony (May 7, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Mega actually listened to people then, and took their input on what was unreliable and what was not. It's funny, the people I'm seeing whining about the list never even bothered to participate and the way they go off shows they have no idea how the list was formed. He added his own sources to the lists, but again, neither were ever meant to be complete lists.



Only initially. He then kept adding stuff to the list at his discretion w/o consulting any other mods, much less the community.


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## Unlosing Ranger (May 7, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> If a lot of different media, preferably in different countries, all independently report that something happened, then most likely it did happen.


That's the thing, it really doesn't.


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## dr_shadow (May 7, 2016)

Unlosing Ranger said:


> That's the thing, it really doesn't.



Then what method do you propose for determining the truth of an event you didn't personally witness?


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## Alwaysmind (May 7, 2016)

Amanda said:


> Videos aren't considered for approval, and based on this thread, there isn't much public demand for it either.
> 
> Would you like to argue for their approval?



I showed what could be acceptable videos. The forest fire one. In short terms, a forest fire ravaged Fort McMurray in Alberta. The town had to evacuate 80,000 people. No one died last I checked but entire neighborhoods were destroyed.

A news article is nice but if you have a news clip thats even better sometimes.

If not, we can always add a vidéo injubction with a writen article.


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## Unlosing Ranger (May 7, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> Then what method do you propose for determining the truth of an event you didn't personally witness?


Some degree of common sense and rational thinking. That's all.
That unfortunately isn't what a consensus is about.


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## dr_shadow (May 8, 2016)

Unlosing Ranger said:


> Some degree of common sense and rational thinking. That's all.
> That unfortunately isn't what a consensus is about.



You're gonna have to do better than that.

We're not on a grand philosophical adventure to uncover what is the ultimate criterion for truth in all circumstances.

We are looking for a working rule for what is an acceptable source in the news section of a manga forum.

Then I propose that if there appears to be media consensus on what the source is saying, then it's acceptable.


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## Unlosing Ranger (May 8, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> You're gonna have to do better than that.
> 
> We're not on a grand philosophical adventure to uncover what is the ultimate criterion for truth in all circumstances.
> 
> ...


Like, the consensus Trump was going to be crushed?


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## dr_shadow (May 8, 2016)

Unlosing Ranger said:


> Like, the consensus Trump was going to be crushed?



That's a prediction about the future, which you can never know for sure. Also would be an op-ed if the whole article was a prediction.

I'm talking about factual news reporting on thing that happened in the recent past. Maybe you use the word "consensus" differently than I do.

I mean like how if the Rodong Simbun writes that North Korea has landed an astronaut on the sun, but no other media outside of NK picks up on it, then probably it's fake or exagerrated.

The point of an OP is to provide the posters with the hard facts of what happened, and then they themselves provide the commentary and analysis. So we're now looking to find a definition of "hard facts".

My definition is "whatever the world journalist community seems to regard as hard facts will be accepted as hard facts on NF"


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## Unlosing Ranger (May 8, 2016)

"Maybe you use the word "consensus" differently than I do."
I just don't see agreement as fact, that's all.


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## Zaru (May 8, 2016)

Whatever the outcome is, I hope it doesn't either enable nutters to spam their biased shit threads or derail tons of threads by making the first replies always about the source instead of the topic.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Animegranny (May 8, 2016)

_I am all for "Freedom of "Speech" but let's not forget that with that "Freedom" comes a huge responsibility. If someone wants to send in an article then they should be allowed to do so, in the same token as a responsible news outlet/cafe it is the duty of those in charge to go over the story and make sure that the sources are reliable.
There is no room for political, racial, sexual, or religious bias on the part of the cafe. Like "Joe Friday" use to say "Just the Facts"....
Well, that's all I have to say on the subject. I hope that This was helpful in some way.   _


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## dr_shadow (May 8, 2016)

My *suggestions* for picking sources would be:

For news that don't happen in Anglophone countries, use an international news agency like Reuters, AP, Bloomberg or AFP. Either directly (if free) or quoted from MSN/Yahoo/other.

For news that happen in Anglophone countries, you may also use the time-honored newspapers and tv stations of the country in question, like the New York Times for American news or The Guardian for British news.

In the cases where a newspaper or tv station in a non-Anglophone country has an English edition, you may use it for news that happen in that country. Some caution is however advised because the English might be poorly translated, and the text might assume knowledge of the country which most NFers don't have.

Internet-only sources which are not affiliated with any pre-internet media outlet are best avoided, but not outright banned. That is because it might be hard to determine who the author of the articles is and what their agenda is. Exception for sources that used to be in print but have now transitioned to being online-only, such as Newsweek.

The repeated mention of "Anglophone" is not to suggest that all NFers come from English-speaking countries. I myself come from a country that speaks Swedish and currently live in a country that speaks Chinese. However as the _de facto_ official language of NF is English, it is best to use articles that were originally written in English rather than translated from another language. Those are generally published in Anglophone countries.

Also, given the cultural dominance of the United States, most people will also have some familiarity with how American society is organized even if they have never been to the United States, and therefore it is a useful "bridge culture" which we consider as the norm and compare other societies to. Meaning that if I post about the U.S presidential election we can assume most people to know roughly how it works, but if I post about the North Korean party congress I will want to use articles that explain elements of the NK political system which are not generally familiar to the American (international) reader.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Unlosing Ranger (May 9, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> Also, given the cultural dominance of the United States, most people will also have some familiarity with how American society is organized even if they have never been to the United States


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## mlc818 (May 9, 2016)

The current banned source list is a huge joke and ridiculously biased.  Al Jazeera, for example, could be a damn fine source for 90+% of news stories they report on - the list seems to me to be intentionally biased against "leftist" news sources. It even includes a joke about how Breitbart is banned but "reliable" (lol), but isn't that what you'd expect from Megaharrison of all people?  That he'd be deciding what sources are acceptable is already laughable.  Stuff like "no youtube links" is simply practical, but attempting to decide if a particular news/opinion source is trustworthy based upon their biases or politics is absolutely insane as you then get people like Megaharrison injecting their politics into the matter - would you have me mod and insist that no mainstream center/right news organization is acceptable since they're biased?  I would never do that, apparently unlike the current mod team, but it's simply impossible to fairly agree on what sources are or aren't biased without injecting our personal opinions into that.  Only those sources which are impractical or intentionally not news, like op ed pieces (though I'd say an op-ed from a very famous political actor could qualify as news), should be banned, otherwise it's just a sad little dictatorship that suppresses those opinions which are disliked by the mod team.

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 10, 2016)

While this discussion is still alive I want to comment on a thread started by @Son of Goku here: 



I think this kind of source would only be acceptable if we were allowing op-eds.


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## Le Mâle-Pensant (May 10, 2016)

I don't know if I could use France24 as a source with your suggestion.  They do have a section in English and can be interesting on stuff about Africa. 
I also believe you overestimate the knowledge of the US system by other members even if I agree the others won't know non US systems like on politics.


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## Son of Goku (May 10, 2016)

erictheking said:


> While this discussion is still alive I want to comment on a thread started by @Son of Goku here:
> 
> 
> 
> I think this kind of source would only be acceptable if we were allowing op-eds.



I'm glad you brought this up. Can you elaborate?



Antiwar.com's bias is obvious. They have an agenda and they cherrypick their news in accordance. I don't mind, since it's not my primary source for news (I don't have one). What's important to me is that they don't make stuff up and that they link to other sources in their articles to backup the legitimacy of the story.

But I don't think that it's a good idea to allow "these" kind of sources as a general rule, cause I'm well aware of the shit-ton of less worthy sources this would open the door to.

What would probably be best, is if mods decided this case by case. Make a new thread, sticky it, and name it something like "Source submission thread". Have people make their case about a "banned" (according to the old rules) source and why it should be allowed and post articles as proof. Mods can either secretly or openly discuss and decide whether the source deserves an exemption or not. And exemptions don't have to be perminent. Sources can be permitted but remain on a (official or unofficial) "watchlist" for a time and if other members (or the mods themself) find issue with the source it should be able to be brought back up for debate.

This is the only way to open up to "alternative" sources that I see, without being flooded by shit sources.

EDIT:
Alternatively OR addtionally, this sticky thread that I mentioned could be used for members to post articles with banned or not yet established sources and get a green light for them before they post it in the Cafe. This allows for good informative articles from otherwise more questionable sources to be posted.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 10, 2016)

erictheking said:


> While this discussion is still alive I want to comment on a thread started by @Son of Goku here:
> 
> 
> 
> I think this kind of source would only be acceptable if we were allowing op-eds.



That's exactly why we need a list of prohibited sources.

You're always going to have ideologues just go to a source that caters to their's and present a story in such a fashion. It's not just with this, recall when JSJ or Sanity Check were around and they'd post shit from Alex Jones and whatnot.


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## Son of Goku (May 11, 2016)

jetwaterluffy1 said:


> But regardless of that, while acknowledging your sources is a good thing, the problem with things like this is that if they are never going to have a story without a source that they investigated themselves. If they tried such a thing nobody would believe them, so they are not really a news source and shouldn't be quoted as such. Just use the USA Today itself if you want to make a thread on that topic.



That's true. Their journalistic work is mostly limited to gathering facts from other sources. Which is true for a lot of sources and articles, Yahoo.news e.g. (mostly uses one source).

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/

Antiwar's added value is that they rarely just copy paste a story, but 'connect the dots' and put it in context. And they aren't funded by ads, but by donations.


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## baconbits (May 11, 2016)

I'm with Seto on this.  I think we need a list of banned sources and a list of preferred sources.  I also think all op-eds should be restricted from the Cafe and pushed to the debate corner and the OP should be thread banned if he/she keeps posting op-eds or videos.

The reason for this is simple: each OP is the starting point for a debate and we want our debates in the cafe to start on as neutral a basis as possible.  I think many of the sources people want to use are simply tools to make the debate ground more favorable to them.

I'm also against video news.  If something is important enough it will have text based sources.  This is largely a text based platform and some of us can't always watch the videos people post.  Also its usually easier to read a story than to watch someone's video.

However if the mods were up to being this active I actually think jayjay's proposal is the best.  The reason I prefer Seto's proposal is that in the past a bad thread would be created and it would take days to get that thing locked.  If we have active mods - and it appears the mods now are more active than Mega was - then I think we might be able to go with jayjay's idea.  But if that's not practical lets stick with the banned sources.

Lastly, those bringing up "free speech"... this isn't about free speech.  You don't have any right to say what you want on this platform.  Free speech, censorship - these things have to do with governments and what is allowed, not saying whatever you want on someone else's platform.


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## jetwaterluffy1 (May 11, 2016)

Son of Goku said:


> That's true. Their journalistic work is mostly limited to gathering facts from other sources. Which is true for a lot of sources and articles, Yahoo.news e.g. (mostly uses one source).
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/
> 
> Antiwar's added value is that they rarely just copy paste a story, but 'connect the dots' and put it in context. And they aren't funded by ads, but by donations.


My point is that if they can't be trusted as journalists, they shouldn't be quoted in a OP. If you find it necessary to combine certain stories for context, just link multiple proper news articles. Then people can connect the dots themselves rather than having it done for them by non-journalistic opinion columns.

Yahoo news is different because when they are just reprinting Reuters stories they should just be treated in the same way as Reuters itself (although why not just link Reuters directly, it makes more sense).


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## Son of Goku (May 11, 2016)

jetwaterluffy1 said:


> My point is that if they can't be trusted as journalists, they shouldn't be quoted in a OP.


IF they can't be trusted, exactly. And whether they are trustwrothy or not is matter of opinion and experience. Trust has to be built. I've been reading their articles for while now and find them trustworthy.


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## Seto Kaiba (May 11, 2016)

Why would your personal vouching for them have any value to anyone else? 

Just follow his advice. This is the issue we had leading up to the prohibited sources, that people said that exact same shit in regard to clearly ideologically-driven journalism.


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## Son of Goku (May 11, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Why would your personal vouching for them have any value to anyone else?
> 
> Just follow his advice. This is the issue we had leading up to the prohibited sources, that people said that exact same shit in regard to clearly ideologically-driven journalism.



I already made my case:



Son of Goku said:


> Antiwar.com's bias is obvious. They have an agenda and they cherrypick their news in accordance. I don't mind, since it's not my primary source for news (I don't have one). What's important to me is that they don't make stuff up and that they link to other sources in their articles to backup the legitimacy of the story.
> 
> But I don't think that it's a good idea to allow "these" kind of sources as a general rule, cause I'm well aware of the shit-ton of less worthy sources this would open the door to.
> 
> ...


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 11, 2016)

Son of Goku said:


> I'm glad you brought this up. Can you elaborate?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A one-sided presentation of the facts is not a problem, it's that it is an editorial. I think editorials would make the forum more interesting, but that's a separate debate to the question of which news sources should be prohibited or allowed.


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## baconbits (May 12, 2016)

Editorials do make things interesting.  That's why they are allowed in the Debate corner and that's where they should stay.


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## Cardboard Tube Knight (May 14, 2016)

I've always kind of thought the banned list was a stupid idea and that it held more bias in one direction than not (just look at who made it). 

Someone questioned why I left the other day and tagged me in it and this all feeds back into that. If you're so embarrassed by this section that it has to be placed at the top of the Landfill, clearly something is wrong. You can look through the conversation threads or other parts of the forum and just see that it's people snipping at each other and that creates an environment that a newbie can't get into. I've been gone for,  I don't know, several months for the most part, I come back here and literally everyone I see is an old member. 

I preferred the Cafe with a more lax approach to modding in terms of sources and the like, even if a source is visibly biased, like Iran state news it might have some value (because it lets us see how others think and how they are being told to think). Even some blogs offer very good information when backed up with links (I read a blog about the effects of the Clinton policies on the black community and it had citations all throughout it). 

I think one thing that would be really important to implement would be a policy that the title of the thread MUST BE THE TITLE OF THE ARTICLE or thing being posted. 

In terms of generating new membership in here, just make rules and actually enforce them and do so equally across all demographics. Don't be a mod that gets to call others names and flame them only to ban someone you don't like for doing the same thing, but letting ass kissers also harass people. Members can act all they want like "that's just the culture of this place" but it didn't used to be. It became that way because of the policies and because of the modding style driving out people who didn't shape their posting style to what the Cafe was becoming. The section was boiled down to those members that would fall in line with the ideals of the section. When you have a forum filled with paranoid alt-right bullshit and people whining about leftist tendencies, no one from the other side wants to have a debate with you. You've already made up your mind. 

I've become a lot more liberal since joining this site in 2006, but one of the things I've kind of taken to is not wasting my time posting or debating in places where no one wants to hear what you have to say even when what you're saying isn't that radical or out there. People in here can push back and act like this is a joke all they want, but until they get to a place where they can actually stop running new members out of the section they belong down here.


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 14, 2016)

Updates on when the new policy will be coming in? @mr_shadow


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## dr_shadow (May 14, 2016)

New policy starting next week. Announcement tomorrow.

Reactions: Informative 1 | Useful 1


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (May 14, 2016)

Seto Kaiba said:


> That's exactly why we need a list of prohibited sources.
> 
> You're always going to have ideologues just go to a source that caters to their's and present a story in such a fashion. It's not just with this, recall when JSJ or Sanity Check were around and they'd post shit from Alex Jones and whatnot.



Shit lets go back to those good ol' days boy!


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## Enclave (May 15, 2016)

Do we REALLY want JSJ to start shit posting constantly again?  Because if anything is going to drive away newbies it's that.


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## Alwaysmind (May 15, 2016)

Maybe he's a reformed person. Have faith.


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (May 15, 2016)

Enclave said:


> Do we REALLY want JSJ to start shit posting constantly again?  Because if anything is going to drive away newbies it's that.


 
I will say as much as I like Infowars as a entertainment source My posting of them as a news source was retarded. However I will not take back my other postings of legit sources that lead to heated debate and the infamous rule change that happened. 

Because let's be for real the reason we changed the source policy was originally because of me.


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## dr_shadow (May 15, 2016)

Source experiment initiated. See the relevant sticky.

I think we'll keep discussion in here so people reading the rules don't get distracted by comments.


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## Zyrax (May 15, 2016)

So everything besides youtube and Blogs is allowed


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## dr_shadow (May 15, 2016)

The "verifiable" rule is in my opinion the most innovative one. It's supposed to be equivalent to the "peer review" principle of scientific journals.

Of course sometimes a newspaper or television station will get an "exclusive" where they are the first on the scene. But even then, their story will very quickly be cited by other media if it's too big to miss out on. So if a story goes for more than one day without being references in any other outlet, then it's probably either made-up or unimportant.

The idea is that if someone questions the credibility of the source, the OP can be challenged to find a different source that says the same thing. A "replication study". If they're not able to do so convincingly, then the thread might get locked.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 15, 2016)

I think this is a sensible forum policy, I like it.


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## Zyrax (May 15, 2016)

Just a question



> So if a story goes for more than one day without being references in any other outlet, then it's probably either made-up or *unimportant*.


Will "Unimportant" news be discriminated against? 

Just because an Article is about a story that most people don't care about doesn't mean they can't generate good discussions


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## dr_shadow (May 15, 2016)

Personally I think we've had enough Florida threads...

But if for some reason I wanted to inform the world that somebody in my home town saw a bear when they were out jogging, and I sourced it from _Kuriren_, then I guess it's ok.

Though if called out on credibility, I would either have to supply the same story from _Ljusnan_ in the neighboring city, or supply evidence (for instance from Wikipedia) that _Kuriren_ is actually the only newspaper based in the great city of Söderhamn, and we therefore just have to trust them to know their stuff on this bear sighting.


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## very bored (May 15, 2016)

This new policy isn't going to make it any harder to post Florida news.  Honestly, Rule 2 could make a lot of work for you and the other mods, if you plan on locking/deleting threads.

On the other hand, I think will be interesting to allow stories from more biased sources.


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## Suigetsu (May 15, 2016)

makeoutparadise said:


> This keeps the cafe's credibilty, and integrity intact


This, also keep it PC free please. We should have free speech and free expression. I liked what Kenneth did with certian section thought, just keep this one with more order and less hectic like the other one.


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## dr_shadow (May 15, 2016)

Depends on what you mean by PC.

Do you mean you want to post articles about migration-related problems? Go ahead, if you have verifiable sources.

Do you mean that you want to call people "^ (use bro)" and expect them to be ok with that? Then no, sorry, racial and sexual slurs are still not ok except as jokes.


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## Cthulhu-versailles (May 17, 2016)

damn. y'all getting serious up in here. having just seen civil war recently, i got to ask if instead of this in fighting, would it not be better to 'ban' the avengers who tend to cause these kind of rules to be needed in the first place? 

see, the problem lies with people's character. for a man, or woman, of character would not filthy discourse with blatant purposeful lies, which a weak source quintessentially can be said to be. 

as i've read nothing and will contribute nothing, i will cast my vote in favor of nothing. good morrow fellow citizens of now defunct naruto.


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## Linkdarkside (May 29, 2016)

Slate and Vox should be on the banned list those sites are similar to Salon,Huffington Post,Gawker Media,ect


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## Cardboard Tube Knight (May 30, 2016)

Linkdarkside said:


> Slate and Vox should be on the banned list those sites are similar to Salon,Huffington Post,Gawker Media,ect


Just come right out and say "ban liberal sites" that's what it looks like you're saying.


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## MegaultraHay (May 30, 2016)

Those sites do have a tendency of being incredibly biased/dis trustworthy, link's bias notwithstanding
tbh just ban shit like the daily stormer or jezebel, basically blatant bias/rallying trash.


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## Cardboard Tube Knight (May 30, 2016)

MegaultraHay said:


> Those sites do have a tendency of being incredibly biased/dis trustworthy, link's bias notwithstanding
> tbh just ban shit like the daily stormer or jezebel, basically blatant bias/rallying trash.


Some of what you're naming are actual blogs that post about news and others are news aggregators. I'd say that Huffington Post is the latter and that's different from something like Gawker that just posts opinions on news.


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## Vault (Jun 1, 2016)

Lol wtf


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## Megaharrison (Jun 3, 2016)

I can't wait for the inevitable floodgates to open because you SJWs want to post salon and buzzfeed shit on white privilege. The breitbart articles will trigger you people into oblivion.


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## Son of Goku (Jun 4, 2016)

^ I'm glad to see how well you're taking all this change. You don't sound bitter at all.


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## Akatora (Jun 6, 2016)

Hopefully well get a better working site again, I don't mind you guys experimentation, but seeing some skin issues for months(mostly at the login) and now having a hard time finding the sections I want to participate in, is troublesome.
Where did the "manga" section for mangas such as Kingdom go?

Personally I prefer the section of the mangas and animes in general(aka the ones without a section of their own) to be the first ones to show up after the site/mod news.


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## Mider T (Jun 6, 2016)

Megaharrison said:


> I can't wait for the inevitable floodgates to open because you SJWs want to post salon and buzzfeed shit on white privilege. The breitbart articles will trigger you people into oblivion.


I think we have more of a problem with ultra-conservative sites since they seem to make up things entirely.


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## Blitzomaru (Jun 7, 2016)

Honestly, it feels like that if the mods actually cared about the future of the Cafe, they'd move it back up to where it used to be, instead of putting it at the bottom of the forum.

But on topic. anything that reads like an opinion piece should be banned. News is facts, not opinions.


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## dr_shadow (Jun 7, 2016)

Blitzomaru said:


> Honestly, it feels like that if the mods actually cared about the future of the Cafe, they'd move it back up to where it used to be, instead of putting it at the bottom of the forum.
> 
> But on topic. anything that reads like an opinion piece should be banned. News is facts, not opinions.



Section mods do not have the power to move sections, so it's not in mine or Amanda's control. You need to be at least administrator.

My understanding of the hierarchy:

1. Tazmo
2. Mbxx
3. Super Administrators (SAdmins)
4. Administrators (Admins)
5. Super Moderators (SMods)
6. Moderators (Mods)

7. Everyone else


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## WorkingMoogle (Jun 7, 2016)

mr_shadow said:


> Section mods do not have the power to move sections, so it's not in mine or Amanda's control. You need to be at least administrator.
> 
> My understanding of the hierarchy:
> 
> ...



Tazmo and Mbxx are the Super Administrators.  Technically as the owner of the site Tazmo could be said to trump Mbxx though given that nobody knows where Tazmo is that's kind of a non-issue.

As far as powers go, Administrators have access to AdminCP which lets them do more than mods/smods.  Super Moderators are moderators that have access to the ban function and the ability to moderate any section not just their assigned section (and probably a few minor powers moderators don't typically have).

That said major changes to the forum are done through discussion, not merely having the power to do it.  Being active in the discussions and making your case as to why things should be where will mean more than merely a title.


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## Akatora (Jun 7, 2016)

Stuff thats getting annoying at this site:

1) The login changes
2) The anime/manga sections being gone removing 40% of the value this site got imo(Found the section, but apparently the search function had more trouble doing so)
3) Wheres the option now for searching for your old posts?

I don't want to give up and move on at this site as well, but if the development continue to add issues like this it doesn't matter much that i've almost been a member for 10 years


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## dr_shadow (Jun 7, 2016)

@WorkingMoogle 

Thanks for clearing that up.

I consider Tazmo to be the Eternal SAdmin, whom you must always ceremonially mention before other staff. Even though he is about as active as Kim Il-Sung.


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## Amanda (Jun 7, 2016)

Blitzomaru said:


> Honestly, it feels like that if the mods actually cared about the future of the Cafe, they'd move it back up to where it used to be, instead of putting it at the bottom of the forum.




This is a wish that unites us all, but as Shadow said, it's not in his hand or mine. We can only try to make this is a bit nicer place and then convince the higher ups that we deserve to be on the top of the forum.


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