Talk:Led By Donkeys

Featured Article review

This was not at Featured article review, it was at Featured article candidates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

In early March 2020 this article was put up for review as a Featured Article Candidate. Here is a summary of the points the reviewers made and how I addressed them, before putting the article up for Good Article Nomination, as the reviewers suggested:

• Sourcing: use of low quality sources

WP:RSP lists sources such as Metro as not reliable, according to consensus. For FAC, one reviewer said the tabloids are not acceptable, nor is the Huffington Post. Another reviewer mentioned the local publications Devon Live, The Birmingham Mail as not being of high enough quality for FAC.

My actions:

- I replaced Metro, Evening Standard, Huffington Post with other sources

- I replaced those references to local publications with national, reliable ones where I could. I kept a few where there is no alternative, and these cases all have a local aspect. For instance, Birmingham Mail is used to report events in Birmingham. For GAN it is not a requirement that the sources are high quality. Neither Birmingham Mail, nor Wales Online are mentioned as not reliable on WP:RSP. No one so far has questioned the reliablity of these local publications on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (see this search here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=100&offset=0&ns4=1&search=%2B%22birmingham+mail%22+reliable+sources+%2Bnoticeboard&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D. So for GAN it seems fine to keep the sources. If I'm wrong, we would have to remove the associated content, as there seems to be no other source.

• Sourcing: anti-Brexit editorial lines

"Almost all the article's sources have anti-Brexit editorial line. That affects WP:NPOV" As it happens the pro-Brexit media have only rarely mentioned Led By Donkeys. On top of that quite a few pro-Brexit sources are tabloids that can not be used. I have used this somewhat dated Oxford University study to check which source is anti or pro Brexit: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-05-23-uk-newspapers-positions-brexit, and glanced at the Huffington Post list on https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/which-newspapers-support-brexit_uk_5768fad2e4b0a4f99adc6525. There may be newer lists. The Telegraph seems the only pro-Brexit source in the UK that passes as reliable as per WP:RSP.

My actions:

- I have added all occurrences of The Telegraph mentioning Led By Donkeys as source, taking the place of anti-Brexit sources. Still, that's only 4 times.

- I have added more foreign sources that seem neutral. So no EU sources, but Al Jazeera, CBS, NBC, Reuters, Yahoo News.

This of course only helps a bit. The only way to get equal number of pro and anti in the sources is to remove a lot of content. For GAN, and possibly, FAC, getting to equal numbers is not a goal we should try to achieve. We need to achieve neutral point of view. WP:NPOV talks about due weight. In an article about anti-Brexit group the reader would expect facts to be more reported by anti-Brexit sources. I believe for GAN the sourcing now is satisfactory on this point of WP:NPOV.

• Sourcing: too reliant on primary source

There were 23 references to the book Led By Donkeys wrote themselves. Where a secondary source was available I replaced it. There are now only 14 left. If needed for GAN, we could delete some content, but I do not think this is needed.

• Prose: Neutral point of view

Despite my attempts to avoid them, a few statements had slipped through that did not meet the neutral point of view guidelines. The word "clearly" in the lead came from multiple sources, but I have now labelled any such cases with modifiers such as "according to the group". The other prose issues mentioned have also been fixed (e.g. unit clarifications, long sentences). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edwininlondon (talk • contribs) 08:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

IP editor changes backed off

I've rolled back the many changes of an IP editor who stated that "the previous version sounded like an SWP/anarchist activist's diary/blog", claiming that the Guardian, Independent and Evening Standard are not reliable sources. The statements in the article are clearly sourced, and the sources in question are well-known mainstream WP:RS. -- The Anome (talk) 11:19, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Satire or quotes

An anonymous editor made a change [1] in the first sentence, changing "satire" into "quotes". I don't think this was an improvement, so I have changed it back. Humour is an important aspect in their work, according to the group themselves. The word "quotes" does not capture this. The word satire fits better, is of a higher abstraction level and is used by journalists to describe LBD. The anonymous editor defined satire as "Satire is use of comedy to convey a truth", which is not quite what my dictionary says, Collins: "the use of ridicule, irony, etc". Edwininlondon (talk) 20:11, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• LedByDonkeysTwitter.png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:07, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

"Anti-Brexit"

While it is true that Led by Donkeys consists of Remainers, as I recall, the focus of their campaigning has never been opposition to Brexit as such. Rather it's opposed to, and highlights, the inconsistency and perceived hypocrisy and corruption of the Conservative government. It's thus rather facile to classify them in the infobox solely as an "anti-Brexit media campaign". Hairy Dude (talk) 22:56, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Hard to tell, really, since their own website has zero content other than a subscribe button. MrDemeanour (talk) 10:43, 23 October 2022 (UTC)