Talk:Californians for Equal Rights

Rewrite Proposal: Notability

I'd like to rewrite this article, and gather some opinions before I actually do it. This is a political organization, I'm not affiliated with it, and I'd like to address the notability issue first.

California is an important state, its politics are important in and for the nation. In this election year (2020) most of the California ballot measures are "do-overs", except two of them, one of which is Proposition 16, which invalidates Proposition 209 from 24 years ago. This is basically a top political issue in California this year.

Ward Connerly was the original proponent and campaign leader for Proposition 209, was a UC regent, and has been an influential political activist according to his wikipedia entry. He is now the president of Californians for Equal Rights and have identified himself on his own Twitter page.

As such, I believe this organization (Californians for Equal Rights) meets the notability standard, and can/should have its own page, assuming the rewritten content meets all the customary Wikipedia standards. I wonder if folks involved in the deletion process, i.e., respected contributors @Dane, Jac16888, Metropolitan90, Kleuske, and Numberguy6:, can briefly comment on this rationale before I proceed to rewrite a simple description for this organization?

Stevel408 (talk) 23:25, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi. As of 2021, California for Equal Rights is now a 501c3 foundation. Its executive committee and board have links to the No on 16 campaign and CA SB40. They are active in the anti-CRT and anti-affirmative action space. I feel they are notable and hope that the Wikipedia editors will consider restoring their page. Thank you. (I'm a newbie. This is adjacent to my area of interest and hope to contribute in the future.) Curious ecology (talk) 14:26, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Additional Information

Here's the original deletion of the article. Stevel408 (talk) 05:33, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Article Re-written

I did not hear back from the respected contributors involved in the previous article deletion process, as such I took the liberty to re-write the entire article from scratch. As I stated previously, I'm not affiliated with the organization but do take interest in the issues. I did not use any of the material in the deleted article, and tried my best to all the guidelines (especially neutral POV) that I'm aware of with Wikipedia. Would appreciate if any of you @Dane, Jac16888, Metropolitan90, Kleuske, and Numberguy6: can kindly review and suggest how it can be improved further. Thank you all! Stevel408 (talk) 06:18, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I apologise, I must have missed your previous request for review. Unfortunately while the article is much more neutral, it still doesn't have any useful sources to demonstrate notability, the first is self-published, the last only proves the group exists, and of 2-5, only one of them actually mentions the group by name, and that is just a passing reference. I have restored the redirect for now, I would suggest you try to find more sources and work on the article in your sandbox--Jac16888 ^Talk 11:09, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

No problem, thank you @Jac16888: for chiming in on the issue, but please allow me to dive a bit deeper on the other side too. Perhaps you overlooked slightly, but the Wall Street Journal opinion article (reference 4 of 5) did mention the organization by name at the very end, when the author signed his name as the president of the organization. The fact WSJ is willing to invite the head of such an organization to author such an important article has to be weighted significantly toward the notability of the organization itself. I might even venture to say that this constitutes "significant coverage" according to the notability guidelines, given the significance of the source being WSJ. Stevel408 (talk) 20:00, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Nevertheless I did think your comment above was reasonable in that some reference to the organization was casual or superficial in nature. As such I've added two additional references (from news sources with authorship, not random web posts, now in my sandbox: User:Stevel408/sandbox), which not only mentioned the organization by name, but discussed the nature/positioning of the organization, as well as quoted the key persons from the organization. These are "sources" that are definitely "independent" of the organization, and are generally deemed "reliable". Hope this goes a step further to demonstrate the notability of the organization. Stevel408 (talk) 20:07, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

One other thing I'd like to point out, if I may. I rewrote the page based on the page from another similar smallish political organization Advancement_Project, and modeled after their format. Today I went back and looked their history and was a bit surprised to find out that it did not cite any sources at all for the first 6 years of its existence (until Sept 17, 2012), and that first source definitely was casual/superficial in nature. Even today, of the 30 sources they have, a quick glance led me to believe very few (or maybe none) of it rises to the level of significance of WSJ. Of course, I'm not saying WSJ is the best source out there, many people dislike it intensely, but in the context of Wikipedia, it should warrant a certain level of significance. Also, I noted that the Advancement_Project (which holds an opposite political view from CFER) also cites a number of sources in EdSource, which I also added in my sandbox, hope this goes to show the reliability of such a source. I don't know if the Notability standards has evolved over the years, or if such comparison even makes sense in the notability discussions, but thought I'd point it out nevertheless, at least as a consideration. Thank you all of your attention! Stevel408 (talk) 20:19, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

The issue with your points are that while the president of the group is notable as an activist among other things, not as the founder of this organisation: the fact that he is notable does not mean the group inherits notability from him, and a mention in his signature is really not good enough. I note that the references you have added also only mention the organisation in passing, in reality what is needed are sources that are explictly about the group, all your sources do is show that the cause is noteworthy and the group exists, note that the group itself is noteworthy. I understand your point about the other article, our standards at Wikipedia have definitely changed a lot over the years, and I shall take a look at that page: unfortunately it is the case that sometimes articles that don't meet our standards aren't scrutinised as well as they should be.--Jac16888 ^Talk 23:57, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you User:Jac16888 for your continued interest and guidance on this issue. I shall go figure out if there's additional sources I can cite to demonstrate an even higher level of notability. In the mean time though, I'd like to see if I can point out some counter arguments for the discussion at hand: (1) a president is the head of an organization, and perhaps should not be considered one of many activists. (2) if we both agreed that someone is notable (at quite a high standard I might add, with a long Wikipedia page), and this person now is dedicated to a single organization, as shown in his Twitter page and WSJ article signature (both as sources already in my sandbox), I believe this does convey a certain level of notability to the organization itself. Whether he is a founder or the president is a smaller technical detail in the context of him dedicating himself to the organization. (3) With regard to whether a mention of an organization is "in passing" in nature, I consulted a number of more contemporary Wikipedia pages on organizations, and found most media coverage is similar in nature, i.e. the media/source reports a noteworthy event, then reports the organization behind the event, and reports a quotation from the representative from the organization. The noteworthiness of an organization in these case were established by them being the organizer of such noteworthy events. Our case is similar here I believe, as my new sources reported the events because they were noteworthy, then reported on the organization by full name, then went on to describe its mission, plus reporting quotations from representatives. I sincerely hope you and others can consider these additional factors when I come back and ask for a review in the near future. Of course, if you believe my arguments above are sufficient, that would be much appreciated as well. -- Stevel408 (talk) 04:26, 26 July 2020 (UTC)