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Neutral Sources

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Currently the Political Positions section of this page has ~92 citations. Of those, ~25 are to Donnelly's now-defunct House web site; and one citation is to his campaign web site. Does anyone think these are neutral reliable sources?CFredkin (talk) 00:37, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Considering they are used to reference his positions they are fine. There is no conflict there. Anarcham (talk) 04:30, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that non-neutral sources are ok for expressing political positions, or that the political figure's own web sites are neutral?CFredkin (talk) 07:14, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am saying they aren't used to extol his virtues or give his side of a story. For his political position his website is just as valid as anything else. Anarcham (talk) 12:08, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't seem unduly self-serving for almost 30% of the content to be self-sourced? Anyone else from the community have an opinion on this?CFredkin (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone have any objection to citing Breitbart here, since Politico is cited at least twice?CFredkin (talk) 03:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely object. Politico is a reliable source, Brietbart is not. If you have a problem with that, take it to the reliable sources noticeboard. Also, your wording of the edit is not neutral, and since Senators and Reps make many, many votes a year it could be undue weight. You can make your points here on the Talk page and gain consensus to have any addition you want added to the article. But consensus is needed. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 03:58, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
RSN seems like it might work. I have no reason to believe the content being discussed isn't true, but it's inclusion without any context, when Donnelly has done many many votes that aren't included, seems poorly weighted. The reason I have been so adamant about secondary sources is that this is an important way to establish whether or not the vote is significant. If several reliable secondary sources are talking about Donnelly and this vote in particular, then it's totally different then using one roll-call mention out of dozens that are ignored. Even with sources, it is crucially important to have some sort of context. Adding a sentence explaining that he did a controversial thing, without any explanation why he might have done that is misleading in the extreme. Grayfell (talk) 22:37, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So are there any sources establishing this as significant? If there are not, it should be removed again. Without a source, it's just a veiled political jab, and that's not what Wikipedia is about. Grayfell (talk) 07:36, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I had hoped we could reach compromise on this, by removing any issue regarding the source, and any language that might have any hint of POV. It seems clear that if his position on the issue is worthy of reporting, then so is his vote -regardless of wide media coverage. Also, while a blog may not rise to the level of a reliable source for inclusion of material, it's disingenous to ignore the existence of a major blog and say that there has been no coverage as to make the properly-sourced material "signficant." John2510 (talk) 14:41, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If there is good sourcing, I want to include this sentence. So what compromise are you offering? How did you remove the issue regarding the source? Without a source, its very inclusion gives much more than a hint of POV. This is a specific and somewhat esoteric excise tax which has been tied into a large collection of highly controversial related issues. It's NOT a point we can just assume to be of such vital importance that we can ignore sourcing requirements. If there really are no reliable sources talking about a contentious issue, it doesn't belong here. It's just that simple. If you think the blog is a good enough source, I encourage you to take it up with RSN and get more opinions. If this is really an important issue, there either are already better sources, or there will be soon enough. I've searched for sources, and it does seem like people are talking about it, so we might see something soon. If not, well, too bad. Wikipedia is not a platform for investigative journalism. This isn't even addressing the fact that BLP articles have higher requirements for sources. Grayfell (talk)
Added secondary source.CFredkin (talk) 23:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given the prior discussion, I'll assume the consensus is that we should remove all the statements that are sourced only to Donnelly's defunct House web site.CFredkin (talk) 23:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is that a joke? I've said several times that just because a link is dead, that doesn't mean a ref is invalid. Just use archive.org or leave it alone if you can't be bothered, both are perfectly acceptable. Read WP:RS more carefully. There is a reason why we add dates and authors to refs, so that they can be tracked down in case of WP:LINKROT. We don't only pay attention to the most recent events. The fact that he is now a senator changed nothing about what he did while he was in the House. Grayfell (talk) 23:56, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They require a secondary source to demonstrate significance. Currently they violate WP:UNDUE, in addition to being unduly self-serving. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CFredkin (talk • contribs) 00:24, 5 October 2013 (UTC) Look... In an attempt to be reasonable here, I won't try to insist that it all needs to be removed or cited with secondary sources. But, as I mentioned above, currently ~30% of the content in the Political Positions section is sourced to his own web site. Currently, all but one sentence in the Veterans section is sourced to his site. That can't be neutral. I'm happy to take a shot at pruning some of the comments that seem overly self-serving, like this: "Donnelly believes in increasing the minimum wage, and is a strong supporter of the rights for every worker to organize and bargain collectively for fair pay." Or someone else might. What do you think?CFredkin (talk) 01:06, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Are you saying they are giving undue weight? If so, then lets talk about that, but what does being defunct have to do with it? WP:PRIMARY is fairly clear. Primary sources can be used with caution. If you want to make the case that a specific statement is giving undue weight, then do that. Please explain how it violates undue, but please don't try and claim a carte blanche to remove whatever you don't like. There is certainly debatable content in this article, but completely removing all of it without any attempt to rewrite or resource is disruptive. If you think that a lot of the content is phrased in an excessively flattering manner, then yes! I wholeheartedly agree. That does NOT necessarily mean, however, that the content should be removed completely. Donnelly is a valid source of information on Donnelly. The point is not that we can't use ANY of it. The point is that we're trying to give a balanced overview of his positions and background. Grayfell (talk) 01:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In response to your additional comments: sound good! It seems like we are mostly in agreement. That quote also struck me as especially galling. Grayfell (talk) 01:32, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I'll take a shot at removing some comments that seem unduly self-serving to me. If you disagree with any of my deletions, please go ahead and restore those and we can discuss. Thanks. CFredkin (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored some of what you've removed, while attempting to rephrase it in a more neutral way. For the labor part, I figure it is okay to use a primary source to summarize the beginning of the subsection, since it is mostly stuff that is reiterated with better sources later. For the healthcare section I attempted to decrease the quantity of flattering wikilinks and summarize what the source more efficiently. I think there is room for further improvement. I also added a sentence about the Hyde Amendment, which was also mentioned in the source. No reason to leave out the controversial positions. Grayfell (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey everyone. I'm Bulba2036, and I'm the one who created what everyone seems to be debating about. I've done the majority of the editing on this page, especially regarding his political positions. I did most of the editing between August and November of 2012 while he was running for the senate, as there was very little information on the page. Donnelly was my congressman, and though the more I looked into him the less I agreed with him, I wrote it with the intention of informing the Indiana electorate who would be voting in the election. I was relatively new to Wikipedia at the time I wrote this and I've now mastered the art of identifying reliable sources and have immensely improved on writing from a neutral point of view.

I'm a little bit surprised that people think that the links on his policy positions to donnelly.house.gov are seen as not being neutral; as I was writing this article one year ago, I saw it as being one of the most reliable links to source to someone who is skeptical of the legitimacy of Wikipedia.

Now, I will say, I do see how it can be interpreted as political advocacy by taking the political positions straight off of the website of a politician who worded it specifically the way he or she wanted, especially if it's roughly a quarter of the links cited. However, I still think using a congressman or senator's official government website is a good source to cite (though, like I said, I have improved in linking sources to a wider spectrum of government websites, media outlets and neutral political research organizations).

I will try to help improve this article, as it seems that I've abandoned it after he was elected to the senate. I will try to find some new sources to replace the now defunct donnelly.house.gov links.

There is no need for people to get upset, this was written by an amateur sixteen year old who didn't like either candidate he saw running for the senate in his state, so he saw an opportunity to educate the electorate after seeing the wealth of information on Donnelly's official house website, so he put it on Wikipedia to improve the page.

Bulba2036 (talk) 00:14, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all your hard work on this article. The nature of Wikipedia is to be bold, revert, and then discuss, and I think that is moving along swimmingly, even if it may be a bit cantankerous. Politics is seldom pretty, y'know? The problem (as I see is) with the House.gov links isn't that they are dead, it's about weight. I don't think you need to worry about replacing old links, the archives are fine, but more sources are still very welcome.
The question up for debate (again, as I see it) is about what should be included at all. Quotes like “Good jobs and fair wages make it possible to feed our families, educate our children, and retire in dignity” are great for commercials, but they don't actually say all that much about what his policies are. After all, no elected official is going to go on record as being against good jobs and fair wages.
More sources are almost always a good thing. Leaning too heavily on primary sources is problematic, because it can lead to quotes like the one above. Likewise, totally ignoring his own statements can fail to give a clear picture.
As an example, the LGBT section included a lot of detailed information, but uses only two non-primary sources. I would love to see additional sources here, because it's painting a strange and conflicting picture. If these individual votes are significant, there should be some source mentioning them. If not to explain them, then at least to comment on their oddness. House votes often get like this, with a lot of compromise and negotiation and procedural fluff getting in the way of an easy answer. Figuring out politicians' broad positions exclusively from their votes turns into original research. At the same time, emptying most of the section would be far worse. It's clear from the two sources we have that something is going on, and we shouldn't ignore that.
Hopefully this has clarified where I'm coming from. Grayfell (talk) 23:35, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT - It appears that the crux of this dispute was not about the neutrality of the information, but the source of the information. After a cursory review, the information in this article seems to be factually correct as to Donnelly's POV on various matters, use of his website, a primary source, is acceptable. I'm removing the template for this reason. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 Done

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What is Senator Donnelly's connection to Washington & Lee University?

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His article lists him as a Notre Dame graduate all the way, both undergraduate and law school. Yet he is included on the list of Washington & Lee "People" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Washington_and_Lee_University_people

His W&L connection is not apparent to the naked eye. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.171.107 (talk) 06:17, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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