Talk:Women's Media Center

Undue weight

I have tagged the 2010 campaign against CBS and Focus on the Family ad section for undue weight because there are problems in its wording and content. We have two long quotations from one side, yet no content at all on what the advertisement contained, nor any equivalent balancing quotation for the criticism of the WMC campaign given by the "pro-life movement" - I've put "pro life movement" in commas because there is also no source for the claim that such criticism existed, and who it was by. We need a source for this criticism, and for who was doing it, and we need either a balancing quote containing some of that criticism or the two quotes need to be removed and their content just summarized. The Jehmu Greene quote seems too silly to include in full anyway. Unlike what she alleges, The FCC and media corporations are very often faced with allegations of censorship over their decisions, and her "We wouldn't be having this conversation if the ad was sponsored by the KKK" sounds like a case of Reductio ad Hitlerum. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:50, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Jehmu Greene is the president of the organization that this whole article is about. Presumably, what the President says represents the organization, and someone reading this Wikipedia article in order to find out what the WMC is and what they do would want to read quotes expressing the WMC's attitudes. We don't delete comments from the organization because we think they are "silly" or whether they employ arguments like Reductio ad Hitlerum. If Vladmir Putin says something I think is "silly", I don't run to Wikipedia and delete it -- whether the quote makes Putin look good or look bad, he said it and that informs readers what he thinks. In History of the United States (1991–present), Wikipedia reports that Bush compared Saddam to Hitler. We don't delete that because we think it's Reductio ad Hitlerum.

I do agree the counterarguments presented by the other side should be added to balance the POV. But we don't throw out what article subjects say because we don't like it. We should let their words represent them, particularly if it is something they said that reliable sources thought was worth reporting or commented on. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:44, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia reports that Bush compared Saddam to Hitler in order to indicate what an a-hole idiot Bush was, not to indicate Saddam bore any real comparison to Hitler! And his comparison was a perfect example of Reductio ad Hitlerum. You seem incapable of editing an article without becoming a militant activist for the opinions of the subject of that article. Articles are meant to be neutral not propaganda statements. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:20, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

(Ignoring the personal attack. Please read WP:NPA, and take it to WP:ANI if you have a personal problem.)

It is not neutral for Wikipedia to report anything "in order to indicate what an a-hole idiot Bush was". Neutrality is to faithfully report what people say without trying to edit out the a parts we don't like, or to intentionally include things we think will make the subject look bad. Are you saying you want to delete these comments because you think they make Jehmu Greene and the WMC look bad? Green seems to have brought up the KKK because it's something everyone agrees is abhorrent, and everyone would agree should be denied a Superbowl ad. It's also a historical referee to American Civil Liberties Union#The Skokie case where the US Supreme Court defined the boundaries of the First Amendment around a group that was nearly-universally unwanted. Green brought it up because there's a Constitutional difference in US law between a government banning speech and CBS denying advertising space to a group. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if the ad was sponsored by the KKK" is shorthand to evoke all of these complex arguments. What Bush said about Saddam was probably a good example of the fallacy, in contrast to what Green said.

But even if Greene's argument is "silly" and fallacious, it is not neutral to try to spruce up the image of a subject by deleting things we think would embarrass them. We should not be trying to make a better argment for WMC than they themselves did. Instead, we let WMC's opponents make whatever counterarguments they want, and we faithfully relay what they said. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

You do not understand how to make an article neutral because you do not seem to understand the concept of it. I'm not wasting time trying to teach you - on another article I wasted enough of that attempting to make you understand what a reference was. I think that, for you, everything is personal (as your replies here and elsewhere indicate). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:58, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

OK, then, since you don't wish to collaborate on this article, I'll take care of it myself. I assume your comment is meant to mean you're withdrawing form working on this, right? It wouldn't make sense to mean that you're kicking me off the article. That's not possible.

I've removed the maintenance tags since I don't think there are any serious problems with this section of the article. It can stand to improve, but it's not misleading in comparison to the mainstream coverage the issue received. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)