Talk:Feminists Fighting Pornography/Archive 1

Archive 1

newsletter issues missing?

The Backlash Times is in 8 libraries ([1], as accessed 1-30-10); I consulted just one. It's unknown if there were other issues published than my nearby library has. As it happened, I think I attributed at least one statement to each issue available there, so the citations can be used to determine to which issues I had access. I hope someone has access to other issues and can add to this article. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Womanews research?

Probably, Womanews, a New York City feminist newspaper that's probably on microform at a library, covered FFP, including a mention of the controversy of FFP publishing porn imagery in its newsletter. If someone has it, please add to the article. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

NPOV and need for cleanup

First off, I want to say that this article is a detailed and well-referenced contribution, fleshing out details on a minor but historically important group in the 1980s "porn wars". That said, the article suffers from a choppy (cut and paste?) writing style and, more seriously, serious WP:NPOV issues. Sentences like "Pornography provides the training for incest, assault, and rape" is presented as undisputed fact, rather than the opinions of the organization in question. This could be a good article with some strong re-editing. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 03:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll get to it in the next few days. The statements I think you're questioning as POV are actually FFP's or Page's as presented by the sources cited, so I'll clarify that. The statement on 1990s/2000s that you deleted as NOR I'll leave out; it is based on my knowledge and otherwise doesn't have a source. People were often getting WAP and FFP mixed up and statements about one were often only about the other.

I also have to figure out why the bot that followed you replaced quote marks in the form of & # 0147 ; (without spaces) etc. with numbered boxes, which makes passages hard to read. If you have ideas about that, please clue me in.

Thanks.

Nick Levinson (talk) 08:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I've fixed what you had in mind, and, unless I see a reply otherwise, will delete the two notices in a few days. Let me know if specific issues are left for correction.

The fixes are renaming of the Issue section to Issue Position, clarifying of to whom the position statements belong, copying a ref from the next sentence to make support clearer, tense at one point, combining of identical refs, replacing of numbered boxes with original &# 0145–0148 ; (spaceless), and replacing an erroneous closing quote mark with the opening mark.

I paraphrased closely from the Village Voice article when I didn't quote because quoting too extensively from an article raises copyright issues, since fair use's length limit is determined not by whether much of the newspaper is quoted but by whether much of one article in the paper is quoted. This is also a problem with Backlash Times, in which probably most articles are quite short, not to mention copyright on what that newsletter reprinted from other media. I don't recall a copyright notice in Backlash Times, but that's not dispositive; there's still copyright in it. I don't want to jeopardize Wikipedia by quoting too much from copyrighted works. So I do paraphrase when I'd rather quote more, but you'll see that the paraphrases are within the authority of the cited sources.

The writing style's choppiness is because WP is for information; it is up to readers to elucidate the meaning they get from the topic's information, so I don't invest a lot in writing style. I focus on making the information clear, accurate, and well-organized for later finding.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, really what the article needs is a brief summary of FFP's positions rather than a list of direct quotes. I can do this in the next few days, once I have time to get to it.

Also, part of the problem with the writing style is the "one sentence paragraph" style. There's no flow to it. Again, I can fix this once I have time. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 06:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thank you very much. As long as the content stays, if you can make it flow better, I'm happy with that. And, you're right; usually, when I sit on a draft for a few days, I find occasion to put separate paragraphs together into one. Best wishes. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

This matter seems to be concluded satisfactorily. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

FFP's later years until closure?

Does anyone know FFP's later history? I saw her for years tabling and she did keep active as an advocate to electoral campaigns, but eventually she stopped. I think that was in the late 1990s or in the 2000s decade. Unfortunately, various print reports confused Feminists Fighting Pornography with Women Against Pornography, which makes some reports unreliable. I don't think WAP ever did much tabling, but you wouldn't know that from what little reporting mentions the tabling. If you know, thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Basically, if you don't know, then don't speculate, per WP:NOR. Just go with what the published sources tell you and no more. BTW, is there anything that gives information on why she split off from Women Against Pornography and founded her own group. Any substantial positional or political differences from WAP? If any of your sources give this, that would be of considerable interest. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That's an overcriticism. I didn't source it and I should have if possible but it didn't go beyond what I know. Saying words like "probably" doesn't exceed knowledge; they qualify it. But you're right that NOR requires a source apart from a contributor's own knowledge.

On the split, the best published source is probably Womanews, which was a local feminist newspaper that's been defunct for many years and which I believe was microformed, but I don't think anyone indexed it (unless the publisher had a morgue, i.e., their own clips topically sorted, but I don't know who'd have that now, if anyone). I checked the Village Voice's indexing in Access for circa '80-'87 for FFP, her, and the bill, and didn't see it there, so VV probably didn't cover it. There's a smaller possibility that off our backs covered it (smaller because they're Washington, D.C.-based) and they're indexed, but I don't have the gender-media index that I think includes oob that far back (either ProQuest or EbscoHost) and I've forgotten the index's name. A library near me used to get it but dooesn't anymore.

Rumor was that the split was strategic; she preferred the street. There's more, but stating it might be libelous against someone or other. It's also clear that they differed on legislative remedies, but the research I did for this article suggests that may not have been a difference until she found herself getting nowhere trying to get legislation passed with a feminist definition of porn.

There's also a website that says why she left altogether and purporting to quote her. Maybe it's true. But I don't want to use that without a reliable source that that statement is really hers. The porn field has its share of deliberate misrepresentations.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

statement on bombing insufficient

Is this a quote? "Even so, bombing is insufficient, because men's views of women and of power must change." It's not in quotes, but it's written as if it should be. The source is paper-only and thus I can't check. —Soap— 01:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

No; it's a close paraphrase. I did not want to violate copyright; there was much of use in the article. Since it doesn't say that bpombing is good, I don't think it's so controversial as to need to be quoted. The source is on microfilm, as shown in the endnotes to the article ("op. cit." refers to the fuller note). Public or academic libraries near you may have the microfilm.

Please don't start what's functionally a new section within an existing section. It confuses replies. That's why I moved your question out (and unindented it).

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've replaced the paraphrase with a quotation. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Notability

I do not believe this group satisfies the notability policy, having looked at the provided references. The majority of them are primary sources, many of them seem to be letters to the editor and such (which cannot be used to establish notability), some of them are quite malformed and link to proquest, which is useless to anyone who does not have a proquest account and cannot therefore be verified. There's also a personal website in there, which is not a reliable source. I am considering sending this to AfD. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, lets send it to AfD and see what others think. Atom (talk) 05:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I just realized that this article has only been around since January of 2010. Four months is not very much time for others to develop the article and find references. We should give it more time to get cleaned up. Atom (talk) 21:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

We should retain. It's notable.

It cites a major article from the Village Voice, available on microform for free in a public library. The ProQuest citations can be checked for free via a public library card for a library system that subscribes, so those cites are verifiable. Other citations include JStor, available at some public libraries, and the N.Y. Times, available online.

The count of letters to the editor is one, from what I see. It was in the Wall St. Journal, which was not a subsidiary of FFP.

The only malformations I saw were a lack of italicizing of publication titles. That's easily remedied; and that's not a notability issue.

The personal website is of someone who observed FFP on the street, thus illustrating their presence with an example, and discussed two sides of the issue presented by FFP. The cite does not make this non-notable.

FFP and Women Against Pornography were competitors and well-known on the issue in their years in New York City, although they generally had different legislative agendas, publicity tactics, and people. The positions of both were controversial. I read various books and articles that mentioned FFP's tabling but without naming FFP, often describing the tablers simply as women against pornography, thus leading to confusion about exactly who was at the tables, FFP or WAP. WAP is the subject of a closely-related article in WP, and properly so. Both belong.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

A personal web site does not satisfy the Reliable Source policy. Anybody can make a website and claim whatever they want. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

If the malformations you meant were the lack of italicizations, that's been fixed. If they're other than that, please specify what. References being specific is not malformation; it's information.

Your only response to my last post above is about the personal website, so I guess you agree on the rest. As to the personal website, that's addressed in the discussion on the nomination of the article for deletion. I trust I've addressed your concerns.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

serial killers as passionate for porn

This was deleted:

Testifying in support of the bill in a [[United_States_Senate_Committee_on_the_Judiciary|Senate Judiciary Committee]] hearing in July 1992, Page Mellish reported that [[Serial_killer|serial killers]] tended to share "a passion for pornography."<ref name="ABAJ-Feminists-Back-Bill" />

The edit summary given was "Serial killers comment not on topic". As a correlation, it may be disagreed with, e.g., on the ground that porn relieves sexual tension or on the ground that the correlation has not been proven, although there are arguments parallel to these that porn harms women's civil rights and that the correlations have been proven. Resolving those disputes is not important to this article. Instead, the relevance is that the statement was part of the FFP leadership's legislative testimony for a bill central to FFP's work and as such may support Congressional intent in passing the bill and, had it been enacted, court decisions in interpreting and applying it. Thus, the statement reflects FFP, which is the subject of the article.

I propose putting the quotation back, perhaps clarifying the context per this discussion.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I took it out because the topic of the article is an organization. The quote, as written here, discusses Mellish' opinion that serial killers have a passion for pornography. First the quote is not on topic as it says nothing about the organization (FFP), nor does it make any conclusion about what she might have meant by that. As far as I know there is no study, or recognized expert who claims that either people who are serial killers have a higher preference for pornography than other people, or that people who favor pornography have a higher incidence of becoming serial killers. With no clear causal link in either direction, and he not an expert on the psychology of serial killers, is it even notable if used in the correct context? If either of those were true, it would be useful in an article about pornography, or about serial killers, but not in this article.

If Mellish was acting on behalf of the FFP at the time, and this was part of some legislative agenda that might be on topic. But the quote says that Mellish testified. it does not say that FFP testified, or that Mellish, acting on behalf of the FFP testified. If she did testify on behalf of FFP, then towards what purpose? It does not indicate anything about a legislative agenda.

If there is some reason that the quote is applicable to the FFP, and that applicability is important, then it should be clear to the reader what that is. Atom (talk) 05:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

That FFP supported the passage of antiporn legislation is stated in the article. Testifying in Congress is part of building political support and getting the bill passed.

Congress allows testimony only if it feels like it. Unlike in courts, Page didn't have a right to give testimony. She was invited or accepted by the Senate because her testimony was important for who she represented, and she was generally representing FFP. The same explains her testimony being discussed in the American Bar Aassociation Journal. Her testimony didn't contradict FFP's work and wasn't irrelevant to it. For example, if she had testified on traffic accidents being due to drunken driving, it probably shouldn't be reported in an article on porn or FFP, but that wasn't her testimony as reported here.

We could probably dig up the official Senate report of the committee hearing for her introduction. Unless we think the cited ABA Journal source is wrong, and no one has said that, seeking the Senate report is a nice touch but unnecessary.

What she meant by it is at least inferrable, although we don't want to publish original inferences in WP. And the testimony may contain inferences. But the uttering of the testimony is not an inference. In it, she's stating a connection useful for political purposes, one political purpose being the enactment of the bill. It is not necessary that Congress passes a bill only if its rationale is scientifically valid. If there's no scientist or other scholar who agrees, that doesn't matter, legally or politically. They can pass laws on polygraph examinations and many other subjects regardless of scientific evidence or scholars available. The judiciary has been clear on what is permissible for a rational basis for passing classificatory legislation. Laws that classify so as to affect people's rights must meet at least the rational basis test of the Constitution's 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, the courts are loathe to intrude within the sphere of responsibility of a coequal branch of government such as Congress, and the rational basis test is not very tough. Under it, it is enough that Congress reasonably believes that there may be enough of a connection between facts and a proposed remedy to warrant legislating it. If serial killers may have a passion for obscene content (and I think executed gynocidal serial killer Ted Bundy said about as much), Congress may consider that in deciding whether and how to regulate obscene content. It is not necessary to prove the connection in order to withstand strict scrutiny. Since obscenity is outside of the Constitution's First Amendment free speech or free press protection, Congress may regulate obscenity, including because of a belief that people are more likely to be sexually-driven serial killers if exposed to obscenity, even if no peer-review-level expert confirmed a connection.

A demand for a test proving causality from porn to rape should be responded to with a demand for a design for such a test, a design that is ethical. Absent that design, we need to use the best information available.

This wasn't Page Mellish sitting in a disco and telling a jitterbugger that she thinks there's a connection; this was her testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee to that effect, thus gaining for whatever she said much more weight in the political legislative process. The statement thus gains much more importance. This is comparable to news reports of elected politicians announcing positions that are identical to those of many ordinary neighbors who never make the news; it becomes newsworthy because of who says it when and where, not because it is any truer.

If the statement is unsupportable in scholarship, it probably does not belong in a WP article on murder or porn, because it would be her original research (OR) or point of view (POV). But because she made the statement to Congress, which doesn't require a scholarly standard, and because her role was as the principal of FFP, which opposed porn and wanted the bill passed, the statement of a connection is relevant in an article on FFP.

I'll consider including the above, briefly, in a rewrite of the passage.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC) Corrected syntax and one misspelling and clarified one mention of a person for his relevance: Nick Levinson (talk) 02:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm attempting to get a copy of the hearings. Either way, I'm planning to restore the essential content per this discussion, as it essentially fits, including the existing citation, absent any further comment. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I've rewritten the testimony passage to cover more and put it into the article, after getting the Senate hearing publication.

I quoted the LexisNexis text; while that's a subscription service (available at some libraries), the Senate text is also, I'm informed, available in two or three other reproductions, including microfiche and paper, and should be available at some U.S. government depository libraries, and some of those are in public and academic libraries.

The addition probably could be shorter but under the circumstances I thought someone would say that I put too little in. I hope I struck a good balance.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

tagging as CoI

Please be specific about what conflict of interest you believe applies and who has it. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, did you write it? It is no big deal, I just thought that it was written by someone who was involved in the group. The same for the fan site template they were adding just to get editors to look at those kind of issues and hopefully improve any content related to that kind of thing. I see it was started with some content from Women_Against_Pornography. This was the original article creation edit. Off2riorob (talk) 22:44, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems like this content was removed from the women against pornography article on the same day this article was created.

Feminists Fighting Pornography, led by Page Mellish, was another New York City-based group. They are best known for their 1989 arrest for openly displaying pornography as part of an anti-pornography information table in Grand Central Station. The New York Civil Liberties Union (the state affiliate of the ACLU) successfully contested the arrest and established their legal right to display such material. ref,Strossen (1993), p 1135–1136. doi:10.2307/1073402. Feminists Against Pornography was a different group, active in Washington, D.C. during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Is this group notable? The article just seems a bit fluffed up and over written. According to Page Mellish, according to Page Mellish and so on. Off2riorob (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I have sent this article to AfD as I mentioned I may do above. Please feel free to participate in the discussion. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I did start the article. I agreed with FFP's basic agenda and with Women Against Pornography's, but both groups probably considered me a serious opponent of theirs because they opposed each other in parts and therefore apparently concluded I must be an opponent of both, too, because I supported both. I saw FFP tabling often for years but we rarely spoke. I may have sent both small financial donations but I don't think I signed any petitions for them. So I don't think either group ever considered me an ally and that doesn't add up to a conflict of interest.

Content about any organization should be in an article about that organization rather than in another organization's article, with some exceptions not relevant here. If the WAP article needs more about FFP in it, please add it there.

If one-sidedness is present, it's because the main criticisms of FFP are of the particular legislative solution and of whether porn is harmful, and both, I think, are amply addressed elsewhere in WP, as they should be, and the FFP article itself describes the legislative choices and links to the pornography article, which presents the debate on criminal effects and the debate on the opposition.

The name Mellish turns up nine times in the main text. I cited her name in each place for attribution or clarity. In some cases, it might be hard to determine from a source whether an action or a statement was FFP's or hers, but because they appear together the proper treatment often is to use both names. This is often the case with small organizations that despite informality are real, present, and reasonably effective. She was the principal for, I think, the whole history of the organization. Her fingerprints, so to speak, will be on a lot of its work. I included her first name often because of a feminist tradition of using full names and not just family names with or without initials, and the use of her full name is justified where used. I did not use her first name by itself except in one discursive endnote about its proper spelling. The article was about FFP. I don't think I found any encyclopedic information about her that wasn't about FFP or FFP's work.

Keeping FFP as a very junior discussion within the WAP article, when FFP had split from WAP if they were ever together and separate sources about FFP were available, didn't make sense. Because feminist antiporn work was widely reviled, it was common in New York to mix the two groups into one stew, with claims that WAP had been seen tabling when I don't think WAP did much or any tabling. WAP had other forms of outreach, such as a slide show, which I saw, and WAP had arguably more famous leadership. People would mention WAP when they meant FFP. (There's a commercial business equivalent: one year CNN TV discovered that viewers thought they had seen certain news events on another network, so CNN started putting its letters on the screen inside news footage.) The result is confusion in potential sources. That didn't occur in sources I cited but it limited what other sources I might have found.

The Grand Central incident is now disputed.

Nick Levinson (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, as I said it was more of an indicator than a big issue, your comments are appreciated and in good faith I will remove the template. Off2riorob (talk) 21:28, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

copyediting wanted?

The article is tagged as in need of copyediting. I've done some. What copyediting is still being requested? Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen a reply, it's been a week, the tag was put up by a user who has been on WP in that time, so I'm about to delete the tag. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

wikification wanted?

The article is tagged as in need of wikification. I've recently linked more words and phrases than were linked before. I took out the tag but it was put back in, so I assume more is wanted. What wikification is now being requested? Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen a reply, it's been a week, the tag was put up by a user who has been on WP in that time, so I'm about to delete the tag. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

expert template seems unnecessary

I propose to delete the expert-needed template, since it seems to be outdated and expertise is needed more elsewhere. The article still can be edited at will, as usual. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Same as below, article has a conflict of interest issues and clearly is in need of any independant expert help it can get. Off2riorob (talk) 18:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

We already agreed that there's no conflict of interest. The facts about that haven't changed, although I appreciate your concern. Since the tag refers the public to the talk page for details and those details of inexpertise, if any, need to be stated, please state what question needs to be answered by an expert.

I indented your reply, for readability.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm planning to remove the tag in about a day, since no one has replied with the requested information, the previous poster has been in Wikipedia in that time, and no one else has replied, and so I assume there's no longer a claim of a basis for the tag. Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There is clearly a conflict of interest editor here. Someone involved closely with the organization or people in it. Off2riorob (talk) 10:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess you were too busy to notice the earlier reply. Thank you for coming back now.

You and I agreed that there was no conflict of interest. See your post, the final one, in which you wrote "I will remove the [CoI] template." The underlying facts have not changed since then. The expertise tag is not a substitute for an invalid CoI tag.

The expertise tag requires that issues requiring expertise be described on the talk page. Please describe any issue calling for expertise. Without that, there is no guidance and we don't know where attention is allegedly needed. Please state at least one question for which you believe an expert's work is especially warranted.

Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I have edited the template so editors will find your recommendation, when you offer a specific one. WP says, in the lede, "After adding this template to an article, please state on the article's talk page the issue that you think an expert needs to address. Unexplained expert tags may be simply removed." Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I plan to take the tag down later today or soon thereafter. No one's responded to the last post above but the last person interested has been online since. Nick Levinson (talk) 09:35, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I deleted the template. No one replied to my last post above. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

cleanup template seems unnecessary

I propose to delete the cleanup-needed template, since it seems to be outdated and cleanup is needed more elsewhere. The article still can be edited at will, as usual. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:47, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

This article is still in need of help and templates reflect that to the general public, the article needs independent editing, and independent citations. Its got multiple issues and we should not portray is a good article.. why don' t you nominate it for good article status and improve it? Off2riorob (talk) 18:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll leave nominating it upward to someone else as I don't know the process and there are plenty of articles that likely can go there. And I don't have a photo for the article. Qualifying for top status is not the same as saying it's defective; not all non-top articles should be marked as defective, only those that are defective. The tag has been up for months and no one has seen fit to act on it. I think you are remembering old criticisms and perhaps hadn't noticed the work done in the interim. Please specify any improvement you think it needs. Just a general assertion that it needs something isn't informative enough. I counted at least 17 independent sources cited 37 times, so, if a shortage of independent sources is an issue, please explain how. If there's something else you have in mind, please state it.

I indented your reply, for readability.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm planning to remove the tag in about a day, since no one has replied with the requested information, the previous poster has been in Wikipedia in that time, and no one else has replied, and so I assume there's no longer a claim of a basis for the tag. Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I replied, the article has multiple issues,and the tags reflect that, please do as I suggested and request good article status and the feedback and any work to bring the level up would be a big benefit to the article. Off2riorob (talk) 10:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good_articles here is the detail about how to request assessment. There doesn't appear to be even one single mainstream accessable report about this group in all the fluffy citations, an excessive number of which are to the groups own magazine. Off2riorob (talk) 10:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad you came back.

I appreciate your invitation that I work to bring the article to within the top one percent of Wikipedia's articles. However, one requirement for that is illustrations, and I have none for the organization. While a logo can be found and newsletters are at a public library, no WP-compatible copyright permission exists for any of that, to my knowledge. Therefore, I cannot bring the article to the Good Article level. Someone with such an illustration would be the person to ask. I don't even have contact information for anyone who used to be associated with the organization, other than name. As far as I know, the group no longer exists.

While GA and higher status encompasses less than one percent of WP, the cleanup tag is on about two percent of WP articles. Thus, about 97 percent of the English Wikipedia is not in need of cleanup even though it's not at GA heights. No one has placed cleanup templates on 97 percent of the English Wikipedia.

As far as I know, all cleanup issues have already been resolved months ago, and the talk pages reflect that. If any issue was not properly addressed, please specify at least one, with particularity sufficient to inform editors. Simply saying the article "has multiple issues" doesn't tell anyone what issues you may have in mind, and apparently no one else has identified any.

Please point to any passage you believe is fluffy. That, too, was addressed long ago.

Please name any cited source that you say is inaccessible, in any sense of that word.

You say none of the sources in some or all references are mainstream. Sources cited include The New York Times, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, off our backs, Newsweek, and USA Today, among others. Please state how each of these, for starters, is not mainstream.

Citing the group's own newsletter is acceptable for the purpose. Citing it fewer times would require organizing the article so as to put information together according to shared sourcing rather than according to readability and navigability, and that would make the article harder for users to use, and that's inconsistent with WP's objectives. Information has to be well organized and citations have to go where they best support the information stated. Please point to where you believe information is overly supported by a citation.

If I have not offered you enough suggestions on how to be specific in order to inform all the editors, please pose any question you like and I'll try to assist you with understanding the editing process.

Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC) Corrected (removing one word for syntax): Nick Levinson (talk) 05:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

WP says, "Please consider using specific cleanup tags first, as specific tags help other editors to easily identify problems in an article." Alternatively, please post at least one specific item of guidance into this talk section so that editors can help. It has been tagged for six months, so far. You've been online since my last reply in this topic was posted, you haven't replied to it or acted on it, and so I think all the matters raised in it are satisfactorily resolved. If not, please re-tag or post. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I plan to take the tag down later today or soon thereafter. No one's responded to the last post above but the last person interested has been online since. Nick Levinson (talk) 09:42, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I deleted the template. No one replied to my last post above. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

conflict-of-interest close-connection template seems unnecessary

This was resolved, as noted earlier without anyone posting particulars in response. The underlying information has not changed.

If you disagree, please state any new information. Otherwise, the template may be deleted.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Please do not delete any more templates, try to address the issues first. You are the one with the close connection to the subject so that is not going to go away, hopefully it will attract neutral uninvolved editors to rewrite the article in a less promotional manner.Off2riorob (talk) 16:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Please state any new information that contradicts the prior resolution. That's been requested and still not provided.

Please list any promotional statement.

I have indented your post for clarity for readers.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

deletions of 10 for primary sourcing

Primary sources are not forbidden, as long as they conform to WP:PSTS. In all eleven cases of recent deletions (done in six edits), the sourcing complied and the statements are properly supported even without independent sourcing.

However, I will look for independent sources as well. Unless the information turns out to be wrong or should be qualified or supplemented, I intend to restore most or all of the eleven deletions in their prior form. I expect to do this over time. I don't know if I'll do them one at a time, in batches, or in one fell swoop.

The WP:PSTS policy says, "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source."

If you have any WP:PSTS or non-WP:PSTS objection, doubt, question, or advice, please post it.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 08:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Adding claims from the group does not identify any notability, independent claims only please there are still excessive quotes to the group itself. There was and still is more content that is fluff and makes this group appear more noteworthy that they actually where, I will be looking to trim more of it in the coming days. Off2riorob (talk) 09:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I suggest, instead, that you please discuss on this talk page the specific edits you believe need to be made because independent sources should be added; or that you do the research to add those sources. So far, most or all of the recent edits are of statements adequately sourced from the group's own newsletter, adequately because not every statement has to establish notability for inclusion. It is more work to restore material that belongs than to discuss them. It is more informative to discuss them.

Notability is only part of WP standards. As WP says, "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles." For this article, notability has been established through independent sources, and, after that's done, not every additional fact needs to be established the same way.

I have indented your reply above, as I have in the past. I think you're familiar with talk layout conventions, as you use them elsewhere. Please indent in the future.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I took a couple of steps to address what may have been your concerns. I reviewed each item from the set. While each is a self-statement by the group of its own positions and/or activities, I took the additional step of clarifying in the main text where not already clear that it is the group's own statement so that readers will know this without having to check the footnotes.

While editing and restoring them somewhat as they were before, I also similarly clarified other text so that there's a similar clarity, e.g., that something was reported in the N.Y. Times. I also added a cite on the condition of 42d Street and clarified who Green was.

Before doing this edit, I again researched the subjects covered by the deleted content. I generally did not find sources in third-party media for those subjects. I looked in EbscoHost's MasterFile Premier and in the websites for the N.Y. Times, a broadsheet, and the N.Y. Daily News, a local tabloid that is generally reliable. That doesn't mean sources don't exist elsewhere; some probably do, and they may be added as they turn up. Possibly, local feminist, community, and college student newspapers of the years in question could be checked, although most, especially if they ceased publishing before the growth of the Internet, won't be indexed or searchable online, and probably only hardcopy or microform searching will be feasible.

The count of 11 in this topic's title was my error; there were 10, in 6 separate edits, so I've corrected the title.

While doing the above research, I came across more third-party sources that I recently added to the article. If you come across still others, please let us know.

I'm open to further suggestions on this talk page. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Corrected (inserted the missing word "newspapers"): 04:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Corrections

I corrected some information based on an email from one of the involved parties, VRTS ticket # 2010042010031009 refers. Guy (Help!) 16:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Does OTRS override a published law journal? The link you provided doesn't reveal an email, but my login didn't work for OTRS today, so I can't see what's supposed to be there. In general, an email not publicly available doesn't override in WP, so please clarify the role of OTRS in determining facts. This isn't BLP. If there's simply either two events or two evidence-supported positions, both can be cited.

The spelling "Kunzler" seems dubious. Should it be "Kunstler"?

By 80th, do you mean 80th Street?

And, as the article stands now, the law journal citation has to be relocated or edited as it doesn't support the new information but may or may not support other main text; and it may be appropriate to contact the journal article author on a factual dispute.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

OTRS overrides pretty much everything, at least on wikipedia. Off2riorob (talk) 01:41, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

In relation to the 1989 arrest, I've seen a number of sources which discuss the information table at Grand Central Terminal and the involvement of the NYCLU. However, those sources don't mention an arrest, instead saying that the FFP were ordered not to display pornography on their table, and the NYCLU became involved in order to defend them. Is it possible that the 1989 arrest on 80th and Broadway was a separate incident to the one described involving the NYCLU and Grand Central Terminal, and that they were previously conflated? - Bilby (talk) 01:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I reindented the last reply above and moved out something else into a new section, which follows. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I called the N.Y. State criminal court for N.Y. County (borough of Manhattan) at 646 386-4511 and asked about Page Mellish, whose birthdate I didn't know, to whom something happened in 1989, but I didn't know if it was an arrest or a ticket. The person who answered the phone found one born in 1954 (I didn't hear the month or day) and said "prosecution was declined" and that the "record is sealed" and that no part of it is available to the public without a "notarized statement" (I assume from Page Mellish). The attorney representing Page Mellish could not be identified.

I separately recall that she worked with William Kunstler on some case. It may have been reported in Soho (New York, N.Y.) Weekly News, published 1973–1982 (http://www.sohoweeklynews.com) (the newspaper is available on microform at a public library). This makes it more plausible that she worked with William Kunstler on this case.

I think this still needs following up.

Nick Levinson (talk) 01:38, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

More information is here, from National Law Journal:

Page Mellish and another member were arrested Jan. 16, 1989, for publicly displaying what the FFP members called "'torture porn'". The charge was about obscenity. Page Mellish was jailed. Their attorney was Ron Kuby, of the Law Office of William Kunstler. Page Mellish said, "'We've been arrested or had our pornography confiscated approximately seven times.'" Ron Kuby made a motion for dismissal of the Jan. 16 charge on First Amendment grounds. He wanted a ruling "'so that members of the group are not constantly getting arrested.'" Porn Censurers Get Censored, by Pat Sims, in The National Law Journal, vol. 11, no. 36, May 15, 1989, p. 43 ([apparent §] In Flux) (University Microfilms (microfilm), April–June 1989) (no relevant letter found in [§] Letters of that or any subsequent issue through Sep., 1989).

This supports a likelihood that two events occurred: one at 80th Street and Broadway and the other at Grand Central Terminal. So I think the Virginia Law Review was correct about the latter.

I'm omitting the other member's name here because of the possible applicability of the BLP policy to it, but the nane appears in the cited article.

i"m planning to follow up one lead in the above before following up through OTRS.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC) Corrections to links or intended links: Nick Levinson (talk) 16:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I emailed but have not heard back from Ron Kuby or Nadine Strossen or their offices. I have no other non-OTRS leads on which to follow up. The only other posts on point, to my knowledge, are at my talk page, and they're old and cited here only for completeness of the record in one location.

I now plan to follow up through the OTRS WP volunteer response system.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

For followup regarding the OTRS system, see the discussion at Guy's talk page. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:27, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick, in this case a law journal is no more reliable than a newspaper or news magazine. People who were there and involved say that some minor details are wrong. I see no reason to doubt them. The details are not, in themselves, significant. If someone say that the lawyer was from foo law office not bar law office and we have no source for foo office but they were the individual concerned, the fact is trivial enough that we should probably just remove it. Guy (Help!) 21:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for emailing me. I'm looking into temporary OTRS access for the purpose.

If the information is notable, I want it to be accurate. You agreed it was notable when you wanted the entire WP article deleted because of this one matter (your post of April 25, 2010, 08:43 UTC). We could omit the street location and the lawyer identification altogether, but that a court ruling was obtained protecting FFP's First Amendment right makes the matter notable and therefore who the attorney was, an attorney or office still practicing, is also notable.

We may well be discussing not one event but several. Without examining the sources, sorting this out is more difficult.

For sourcing, we have a law review, we have a legal newspaper, and OTRS has an email.

According to your description of the OTRS email, it authoritatively states relevant facts intended for dissemination in Wikipedia. It thus appears that it is not intended to be kept confidential. Whether we can publish it in its full length raises a copyright issue but, it appears, not a BLP issue. Nor does it seem likely that it was exchanged for a promise of confidentiality. While I had expected to keep it confidential in accord with normal WP OTRS practice, it now appears that confidentiality was not the emailer's intent, as reflected in your handling of it so far.

While I imagine more than one of us has read the law review, I may be the only one, and I may also be the only WP editor who has read the newspaper account cited in this matter, since I found it on microfilm at a law school. You may be the only one who has read the email. I would like to put all of the sources side-by-side and see what information is accurately supportable as a result. In general, both law reviews and legal newspapers are good sources within WP's standards and the email as a self-statement is also good. As applied to the FFP article, that may also be true. Verifiability requires that the information accord with the sources and apparent conflicts should be checked in case differences between normally good sources can be resolved without conflict. That is what I intend to do.

In doing so, I want to avoid the error that occurred when the statement was edited from the facts asserted in the law review to those from OTRS without changing the underlying reference, thus making the Wikipedia article wrong. That wasn't my error but I corrected it anyway. In the same spirit, I want to ensure that the article remains accurate as to its content, as well as keeping its content notable.

Should any portion of the email need confidentiality, please let me know. Perhaps the emailer indicated that part of it should be so protected, although it appears that your understanding of the emailer's intent is that confidentiality is not required for all of it, if for any of it, but that dissemination is required for at least some of it.

Please post the next step.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is the next step not simply believing the participants when they say what happened and which law office was involved? Guy (Help!) 09:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Among other reasons, because some details attributed to the unpublished source appear to be (e.g.) misspelled, because different events are likely being discussed as if they're all one when they may not be, and because the email was likely meant to be disseminated and therefore sources can and should be compared and likely haven't been yet. It's possible that all three sources are correct. Nick Levinson (talk) 14:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Having received a new review of the OTRS email for this article, I combined the credible information from reliable third-party media and OTRS. Accordingly, I edited the subsection Petitions and Tabling and the subsubsection Arrest and Charges For Pictures and renamed the latter to Obscenity Charges and Right to Display. I decided to include both locations because they're both plausible (I saw her tabling in many high-traffic locations in Manhattan and other sources report or claim multiple tabling sites in Manhattan) and the one not in the email was reported in a third-party published source. The street intersection named in the email is unlikely to be contested by anyone. I included all attorneys per the third-party media including Kunstler but not the email-based spelling "Kunzler", as that's almost certainly a spelling error and not a different attorney. Even if all the legal defense work was in just one case, all of the attorneys could have participated, since all that would have been necessary is for one organization (NYCLU) to refer the case to one attorney (Kuby in Kunstler's office) or for the attorney to ask the NYCLU for assistance (e.g., research or trial prep) and then they all could say they did the case, so there's no conflict with the third-party publications. For good measure, I was extra explicit about naming all the supporting third-party media in the main text as well as in the inline references. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:37, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

primary-sources template seems unnecessary

Each of its citations to the subject organization's own newsletter is a self-descriptive statement and thus authoritative and reportable about the subject. I have reviewed them again. If you believe that any particular citation is not, please state which one.

The article cites many third-party reliable sources, all verifiable. These include ABA Journal, Boston Globe, LexisNexis (U.S. Senate hearing), Library of Congress (Constitution Annotated), The National Law Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, off our backs, USA Today, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, and Women's Studies Quarterly. This was noted earlier, in the post of Aug. 17, 2010 05:45 UTC, 7th paragraph (listing sources), and not responded to.

These issues were discussed when the article was nominated for deletion and the matter was resolved then.

If you can offer an additional citation, please do so.

If you can offer any useful response, please do so. Otherwise, the template may be deleted.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There are still excessive primary citations in this article. Independent third party citations are required to assert notability. The template is to allow independent users to attempt to find some, although personally I don't think there are any. So removal of some of the primary claims may be a better solution.Off2riorob (talk) 17:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Please list any third-party source I cited that you believe does not exist.

Please list any citation to the subject's newsletter that is excessive.

All independent users and others are already allowed to find sources, just as I did.

It has been your practice not to be specific. Once again, I invite you to be thoughtful and specific.

I indented your answer in conformance with standard WP practice and so readers can distinguish your post from mine.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to re read this, please remember there was no consensus about the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Feminists_Fighting_Pornography imo the article has if anything got worse since then as regards sourcing and there has only been one user that has involvement with the group that has added any content. The article is a fluff [piece bloated with excessive commentary and enlargement of its importance in the history of the movement. Off2riorob (talk) 11:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

There are a goodly number of third party reliable sources being used, but Off2riorob has a good point in the preponderance of primary sources. WP:PSTS cautions us about using primary sources, and stresses that an article should not rely completely on them. This article is dominated by The Backlash Times and statements from Page Mellish herself. I believe the reason for this is because the article is almost entirely a description of the group's positions and views. While that kind of information is important to have in an article about an activist group, it shouldn't be the entirety of the article. I see nothing in here in regards to the reactions toward the group (negative and positive). Another troubling bit is that in the section discussing their public activism, there is almost no coverage of anything they did outside of their own newsletter. Very few of the third-party sources here seem to be actually about the group itself, but rather cover issues that the group was protesting against. I don't believe that Nick Levinson has been avoiding those sources in order to present a rosier view of the group, I think that this is rather because the group was largely ignored by the press. This doesn't speak well for their notability, and we might have to revisit the discussion about this article's inclusion. -- Atama頭 20:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying issues.

Before the recent deletion of some primary sources, there were 73 references, of which only 16 were to the organization's newsletter, so that 78 percent were secondary sources. By far, then, the article relies almost entirely on secondary sources, and proportionately very little on primary sources.

Primary sources may be used under WP:PSTS, in which the stated policy is this: "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." All of the statements in the article and based on the organization's newsletter are close paraphrases of original texts (not quoted, in order to avoid infringing copyrights) and can easily be verified via a library holding the original newsletter (some may be willing to mail photocopies of pages on request, perhaps for a fee), ensuring the nonexpert will be able to compare WP to the newsletter and see that the WP content is on proper authority. That applies equally to the statements recently deleted.

The frequency with which Page Mellish is mentioned is because, as far as I can tell, the group was nearly synonymous with her, as is often the case with small organizations (including small businesses). She appears to have been its chief policymaker, activist leader, and spokester. None of the statements attributed to her are from conversations I had with her (I hardly ever had any) or emails or correspondence from her (I never received any). They're published statements of hers, either from secondary sources or from her organization's newsletter, and thus verifiable for accuracy according to the respective attributions.

The secondary sources are cited not simply because they discussed some subject or other, but usually because they discussed this group or its leader and also discussed something relevant to either or both.

The article is not "almost entirely a description of the group's positions and views." On the contrary, it includes much on actions it took in furtherance of its positions. It was an activist group and thus positions and activism are appropriate for a description of the group, and that the article amply provides.

A criticism of the group is stated in "[i]t also published images from pornography, for which the group was criticized." (footnotes omitted). Another is stated regarding their legislative agenda, and it says "[t]he bill has been criticized", including a link to criticism of the bill. Links throughout the article to other WP articles present readers with disagreements on issues. Criticism of the group's work is, virtually, criticism of the group. However, if you mean criticism of the group's internal operations and not of its work, I don't remember any having been published and most editors and historians don't usually have that for any except the largest or highest-profile institutions. If you have that, please post.

I'd like to have provided positive/negative reactions to a greater extent, but a problem is that some critics said something to the effect of "women against pornography tabled . . . ." when Women Against Pornography probably didn't table and the criticizing authors likely meant Feminists Fighting Pornography as the tablers. Both were feminist groups of women in the same city and both focused on pornography and with similar analyses. That kind of confused reaction is not much use in the article unless a specific reaction can be connected to the error, and I haven't seen that kind of acknowledgment.

But a reader may reasonably infer reactions from, for example, the substantial extent of media coverage of the group and that the group testified at a U.S. Senate hearing on the subject, both reported in the article. The letter published in a major national daily business newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, stating that the group was not against love or sex, implies that a newspaper editor perceived that the group's position was newsworthy, and that indicates reaction to the group.

The public activism section includes citations from The Village Voice, The New York Times twice, The National Law Journal, and USA Today. I think that establishes notability of their public activism alone, and public activism is not the only thing that makes them notable. The group sought legislation, as reported by The Village Voice, USA Today, and ABA Journal, and the group's leader testified in the Senate, which most people who merely support or oppose legislation never get a chance to do, because an invitation to testify is at Congressional discretion. Her testimony was published and is cited.

Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC) (Addition of minor comma was after last date-time stamp and before this one: Nick Levinson (talk) 07:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC))

Looking at articles about other activist groups, such as PETA or Greenpeace or National Rifle Association you see more about the history of the organizations, the controversies about them, criticisms, etc. I just don't see a lot in this article outside of "this is what the group stood for" which makes it almost read like a pamphlet promoting the views of the group. Also, simply saying "for which the group was criticized" is nothing, that's like having an article on Joseph Stalin describing his actions in World War II and merely mentioning that his tactics were sometimes questioned without going into details. There's a lot missing in this article, and if it's missing because there are no resources available that can help us expand those missing portions, then that once again brings the notability of the group into question. I don't question your motives, I suspect that the slant this article seems to have is a matter of circumstance rather than design, and I do applaud (and envy) your ability to expand the article to the point that it's at now. But it does feel unbalanced at the moment. -- Atama頭 18:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for narrowing the critique.

I've added to the FFP article in recent days, and some of that may address your concerns. Among other things, I added to the FFP article a quotation criticizing the porn appearing in the group's newsletter; I had already footnoted the statement. There's another statement that I recall being to similar effect, but to get that I'd probably have to go through lots of microform of old newspapers, and that probably requires more time than I'm prepared to donate to the purpose right now. You asked for more history; I found something on Page Mellish's father's influence on her and from a good source which is already cited and unlikely to be contentious, but there's already a complaint that she's named often in the article and I don't think her father's influence is important enough to add.

I didn't add to the main text on tabling about "'scream[ing] at people and show[ing] pictures'" or about "'large placards featuring horrid images of women being exploited'" because both sets of facts are apparently misattributed to the wrong organization. I did cover them in the article in two footnotes currently numbered 47 and 48, in order to discuss the misattributions. My own observation was that when I saw her tabling she called out her message audibly but probably no louder than a hot dog vendor would at an amusement park and she was at high-traffic and commercial locations where the noise is not an issue. The likelihood is that people were reacting more to her message and less to the amplitude. So maybe she was unusually loud to the radio interviewer but apparently not to the blogger, to another observer quoted in the main text, or to passersby in my observations. She ignored me when she tabled, and it was unlikely she was louder or quieter because of me. Insofar as "'scream[ing]'" should be covered as a criticism in the main text, I think we should await better sourcing, since we have only one with a misattribution. The pictures as a subject of critique are already covered elsewhere in the article.

"[You] just don't see a lot in this article outside of 'this is what the group stood for' which makes it almost read like a pamphlet promoting the views of the group." There's plenty on how the group practiced its activism right up to being a significant player in getting Federal legislation introduced. There's a long paragraph, for example, about its participation in a Senate hearing and that's been in the article for quite a while. It's not easy to get to testify in those proceedings and the testimony was published. She went to jail and kept on tabling and that's in the article, too, and that's more than simply describing what the group stood for. What the group stood for is right after the table of contents and maybe the article could look at first glance like merely a description of its positions, but what it stood for should be in the article's beginning, because what it stood for is why there was advocacy, thus the article is reasonably ordered. This article, however, would make an awful pamphlet; to be that, criticisms, both explicit and referenced, would have to be cut out.

The WP article on Playboy has only one explicit criticism, namely one about Indonesia. We may infer others, but apparently it's acceptable for that article to lack any other explicit criticism, such as on why the magazine was ever published, doubtless a subject of a handful of well-known third-party sources. I think most readers can agree that there was such a controversy. The article has earned a POV tag; it could be given one. The WP article on the Playboy Foundation, an article that's almost five years old, and the almost-six-year-old Playboy Enterprises article have no criticisms, and the total Playboy organization was/is far larger than FFP then or now. (Probably most of the better-known NYSE-traded businesses have been criticized in third-party media. The Foundation has been the subject of specific criticism that, if I recall where I read it, I might add, but no criticism is in the WP article now.) The Playboy Playmates of the Month for 2008, all the pages having been created by 2008, far enough back for challenges to notability to have been entered and for controversies to have been edited in, all except one being just stubs and yet remaining on WP, only three having been nominated for deletion (in four nominations) and all having been kept, all except two having no top-of-the-page templates seeking improvements (only one requests BLP sources and one says only a single source is cited), and totaling 13 models, have no criticisms. All Playboy models, like hip-hop video dancers and women prostituted on the street, are categorically (if not by name) criticized in third-party media on the masculist ground that women should have the morals to refuse to pose for Playboy and videos and to be prostituted, while the modeling per se, but not the women, is criticized on feminist grounds for messages the modeling conveys or that are inferred from it, yet none of the Playboy-related articles stated any of these critiques. I don't doubt the general criticisms are somewhere in WP; I take it on faith that they're somewhere, gaining the ease of maintenance over repeating them on every model's page. But the comparable criticism of FFP's work is in articles on pornography, and for the like reasons of ease of editorial maintenance, as well as for placement where readers can more readily find it. And the FFP article links to those criticisms. For example, it says, in a separate paragraph, "[p]ositions on pornography have been debated outside of FFP, including with respect to porn's effect on crime and feminist definitions of porn", with two links. It says, "'[M]any feminists' and others also supported the bill^[17] while Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon did not support this bill^[18] and, for other reasons, neither did numerous other feminists.^[19]" That sentence includes two links to WP articles and three footnotes to third-party sources. Thus, the FFP article is more explicit about criticisms than are the Playboy-related articles.

I hope no one thinks that FFP deserves even a tenth as much criticism as Stalin acquired. That was quite a comparison. And the nation he headed had a far larger population than FFP's and far more media, including official and underground (notably, samizdat).

PETA claims a membership of over two million (PETA's Mission Statement, as accessed Sep. 12, 2010), or bigger than any of at least 53 nations with their own respective WP articles; Greenpeace claims almost three million supporters worldwide (story as of 2004, as accessed Sep. 12, 2010 (their FAQ was broken when I looked and I didn't find a U.S. figure)), or bigger than any of at least 57 nations with their own respective WP articles; and the NRA claims a membership of nearly four million, or bigger than any of at least 68 nations with their own respective WP articles. In a comparison, FFP is notable even though far smaller and, being smaller, attracts less public scrutiny as a single antipornography organization among a number, including feminist and religious organizations. The FFP WP article covers the external disputes. I haven't come across internal ones.

Given that criticisms of FFP are going to be either external (e.g., choice of issues) or internal (e.g., decision-making process), given that one difference between private American organizations and most nations is that people who don't like organizations typically leave whereas people who don't like nations typically stay and then chafe or protest, and given that what makes an organization subject to news reporting and books is usually its external impact rather than its internal doings, there's going to be little or no reporting on internal disputes in a small organization even when its external impact is substantially covered, as FFP's was.

Perhaps a thought is that criticisms should be in a separate criticism section. That is frowned upon. Instead, in accord with the WP preference, where criticisms are about FFP specifically, I integrated them into the article generally, and where the criticisms are about the work or movement that FFP was part of or the general subject we find the criticisms in WP articles about the work, the movement, and the general subject.

Accesses to WP pages for this reply were performed on Sep. 11–13, 2010, local time, unless otherwise specified.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC) (Corrections: Italicized "Playboy" as magazine title and superscripted footnote references in a quotation. 06:19, 13 September 2010 (UTC))

Reference to broken DOI

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(Resolved. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC))

Does Page Mellish = FFP?

If that's the case, then I would suggest moving the page to Page Mellish and mentioning FFP as some of her activities rather than the other way around - this suggests that Mellish is notable while the organization is less so. Much of the page consists of "Page Mellish says..." The Observer article should not be cited here, as it doesn't mention FFP at all. As is the page is missing much important information - how many members did it have? How great was the distribution of The Backlash Times? How long did it run? Was it a newspaper, a magazine, or a newswire service? This source suggests it is the latter. If all statements made by FFP were made by Mellish, and it was never run by anyone, and in particular if it was never really very large (but still got a lot of attention) then I would suggest it is far more reasonable to have it as a subsection of a person's page than a whole page separate unto itself (particularly when Mellish doesn't have her own page). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:47, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Page Mellish was not alone in FFP but was its founder, leader, chief activist, and chief spokester and probably the last person there when it stopped functioning. Like many small nonprofits and businesses, FFP was an organization that without her would likely not have existed, even though other organizations would fill its space. She without FFP is probably not notable; I've found almost no sources about her other activities and interests. FFP whether she or someone else had run it qualifies as notable. Therefore, to have the article be written about her rather than about FFP would fail under WP's policies. Her work in animal welfare did not achieve much notability; the Observer article may be the only support for that to be notable and it's more relevant to FFP than to animals, as the Observer author clearly was discussing sexiness and female dress in general and asked Page's take on the subject, making her animal work much less relevant in the Observer except as an indication that she stopped FFP's work.

You said that some information is missing: "[H]ow many members did it have? How great was the distribution of The Backlash Times?" I don't have either answer. If you have it, please supply it. "How long did it run?" Whether the question is about FFP or Backlash Times, the closest we have to an answer is in the article as it stood before the October edits. If you have a more precise answer, please supply it. "Was it a newspaper, a magazine, or a newswire service?" It was a magazine printed on newsprint (I think it was bound, either glued or stapled) and copies are available in a few libraries. The cited Google Books page is hard to read even when enlarged in my browser but it pretty clearly seems to say "news service", not "newswire service". I'm unaware of Backlash Times or its content ever having been distributed by wire. "If all statements made by FFP were made by Mellish": not all of FFP's statements were made by her (the WP article points to at least one other person), but most of them were by her, to my knowledge. "If ... it was never run by anyone": It was run by her; probably others helped her at times, occasionally other people definitely turned up in connection with FFP, but my impression as an outsider is that mostly she ran it. "If ... in particular if it was never really very large (but still got a lot of attention)": I don't know how large it was. It got a lot of attention, especially in New York City. She organized people by the hundreds into making the issue better known and gaining political support, but I don't know if that's what you mean by the size of the organization. "... I would suggest it is far more reasonable to have it as a subsection of a person's page than a whole page separate unto itself (particularly when Mellish doesn't have her own page).": If you know of evidence of notability for her apart from FFP, please post it, because I don't have it and haven't seen it.

The FFP article is not about her personal life. It is about her insofar as she had a role in FFP. Therefore, under notability policy, the article has to be about FFP, not her, and she qualifies to be mentioned in the FFP article but not to have a standalone article about her. To write an article about her with what is available but fill it mostly with FFP would be coatracking, thus impermissible.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

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