Talk:Republican Liberty Caucus

Old comments

Updating RLC Wiki Entry

We will occasionally be making updates and corrections to the Wiki entry for the Republican Liberty Caucus. Please leave a note here before making revisions. Westmiller 04:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

npov, style, and format issues

The article Appears to have been written by a member RLC or to have been copied from an RLC publication or website. It needs to be rewritten so it describes the RLC and it's view in a more NPOV manor and in an encyclopedic tone. Also, the article should have an intro paragraph before the table of contents as with other Wikipedia articles.

--Cab88 01:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I second this motion. Anyone have the time? Njerseyguy 15:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

A month and a week later, it still reads like it was pulled straight off the RLC website, and contains a fair amount of unencyclopedic content, as well as the tone issues cited above. Tagged for rewrite. MrZaius^talk 20:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As one of the people who contributed to the original page I can tell you that it didn't draw on anything from the RLC website except for specific facts about leadership and the board. It may have been largely written by RLC members, though I don't know who, but it definitely was never a direct repost of anything from the organization's site. -- graball (yeah, i'm not logged in) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.41.16.6 (talk) 03:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

State committees

There are links to two individual RLC state committees. Rather than encourage them, I've bumped them, posting the link to the RLC page with all 51 committees. Granted, it is easy enough to find from the main page (listed), that I'm guessing even that should be superfluous. If anyone else wants to chuck the state listing, please do. samwaltz 22:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Changes

I've significantly changed the article. You can see my changes here. [1] The problem was of course the fact that the entire article sounded like it came strait from the website of this political organization. The article was tagged for months now and it was about time something was done about it.--Jersey Devil 00:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Good job. Could still use some review for tone, but it's a lot better than it was. Tagged with refimprove to remind me to fix the malformatted inline links, but if anyone wants to beat me to it (Template:Citeweb&<ref></ref>&Template:Reflist=good), go right ahead. Also, restored See Also - The only link is a redlink, but I can't see any cause to believe it unreasonable to expect its creation, and thus it seems warranted under the redlink caveat in the manual of style. MrZaius^talk 01:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually that article which was red linked has been deleted several times so I removed the see also section. By all means though if there are relevant articles to link in a see also section feel free to recreate it with such links.--Jersey Devil 03:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair 'nuff MrZaius^talk 05:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

RLC just held their every 2yr national convention and elected new officers. http://www.rlc.org/about/national-committee-2/ Robi2106 (talk) 22:03, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Adding The Statement of Principles. Rpchristiano 01:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Everyone :)

I have a college project to improve Wikipedia pages and was wondering if I could add the RLC's official Statement of Principles to the page. As a Caucus member, I thought if I could add the Caucus'officially agreed upon principles to its page it might give individuals a better idea about what the RLC stands for and represents. Please let me know if anyone has any major objections As I wrote earlier, this is for a college project. Thanks and take care. Rpchristiano 01:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC) rp

Added RLC Principles. Government Powers, Bill of Rights, Government Reforms, National Defense, Abortion. Everything sourced properly from RLC Official Statement of Principles and Positions. Rpchristiano (talk) 09:57, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Everyone :)

I am a college student and a member of the caucus. I had a project that I wrote to all of you about several months ago (the direct posting above this one) that I had to edit Wikipedia pages for a course project. I added the following sections:RLC Principles. Government Powers, Bill of Rights, Government Reforms, National Defense, Abortion. Everything sourced properly from RLC Official Statement of Principles and Positions. If everyone could just hold off until the 18th of December (this month :) before you edit my sections so that my Professor has a chance to evaluate it, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks again, everyone, and Take Care :) Rpchristiano (talk) 09:57, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Strategy Section

The strategy section is ridiculous as it currently stands. It talks about "the best strategy" etc... "Best" is a POV term and Wikipedia does not allow POV. Suggest this article needs a major rewrite. JettaMann (talk) 19:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Should this article be deleted?

I'm not quite ready to remove the tag. But in fairness did a quick news archive search which does show some WP:RS about this group. But I don't have energy to improve article. So improve quick if you want to keep it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:17, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that it needs to be deleted, but there isn't a single secondary source in the whole article. There's one blog ref (probably allowable for its limited use), one primary source, one video link that I haven't watched yet, and the rest of the article is all sourced to the RLC websites. Rather than deleting it I'd suggest stubbing it down to a few paragraphs. We're not here just to reprint material from the RLC. As it stands, the article violates NPOV by only giving one viewpoint.   Will Beback  talk  18:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't name names without sourcing per WP:BLP

Please read that policy page. Organizational members, people endorsed by BLP can be sourced from the RLC web page. People mentioned in historical references from the RLC web page usually OK unless it is at all controversial or negative - or they don't want it known that they were associated and you don't have a third party source to prove it. But third party sources always best when and if you can find any. Other unsourced material, which he article abounds in, also can be removed so there wouldn't be much left. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

NPOV again

Particularly in the section "Projects"... there is a frequent use of the word "we" without any quotes, as well as words like "pro-liberty" and "pro-freedom." magicOgre (talk) 12:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality has been improved. Removing disputed state for now.206.180.38.20 (talk) 18:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Long lists

Why are we listing all of the members, endorsed candidates, etc? That information is on the RLC's website, and we can simply link to it. We're not here just to reproduce their listings.   Will Beback  talk  19:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Seeing no response, I'm going to delete the lists.   Will Beback  talk  17:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

"grassroots, member-run"

I removed this claim from the lead because it's a POV statement which requires sourcing and possibly attribution.   Will Beback  talk  21:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I also removed "in a civil and cooperative fashion" because the citation for that mentions neither of those attributes, and instead discusses a lawsuit and some other acrimony.   Will Beback  talk  21:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "member-run". I took a look at the bylaws, which are posted online. It specifies that the leadership is elected biannually at a convention of all regular members. That is significantly different from many political committees which are run by self-perpetuating boards. While "member-run" is more than we can say based on those bylaws, I think we can find references to the conventions and thus indicate the general governance structure.   Will Beback  talk  23:35, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Former elected officials

The whole Former elected officials section doesn't seem to belong. It seems that someone just posted a list of famous conservative or libertarian-leaning conservatives to the RLC website and than someone else posted that to wikipedia. If the RLC was formed in 1991, how could people that died in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s have been members of the RLC? Whatitisallabout (talk) 11:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the section. The so-called endorsements occurred long after the politicians left office or even died, and they are not noteworthy.   Will Beback  talk  01:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I see the material has been restored, with the edit comment: " if you are too ignorant of politics to recognize notable names then don't delete this section."[2] I am certainly aware of many of the entries in the list. But the endorsements are no-notable, and they are not actual endorsements in the conventional sense of the word. If someone can find a secondary source independent of the RLC which notes these endorsements then they might be worth keeping. Otherwise, they're non-notable organizational activities.   Will Beback  talk  08:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The source page for this section is almost useless, I agree. It's a combination of actual endorses and people that someone who wrote the page thought were admirable and shared the organization's principles. I deleted the two obviously bogus names. The remaining ones appear to be legitimate and documented endorsees.Graball

I'm going to delete it again. It's excessive weight given to a non-notable list. In general, Wikipedia articles should be based on secondary sources independent of the subject. While I can imagine (though haven't seen) such sources reporting on current endorsements, these endorsements of dead or retired politicians will likely never be discussed outside of the RLC website.   Will Beback  talk  19:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

There was some press coverage of the Sanford endorsement. I could probably find a link. There's plenty of press coverage of more recent endorsements, but as I understand how these things should work, it's the fact of the endorsements as a group or a practice (with an appropriate reference) which is relevant, not all the specific details which can be found on the site. The RLC endorsed something like 450 people last year and got over 150 elected. Would it be appropriate to say something like "In the 2010 general election the RLC made X number of endorsements. Y number of endorsees were elected to Congress, including Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Justin Amash, and Z number to other offices in state and local government." And I'm not going to make that change, I'm just suggesting it. Graball (talk) 05:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I was talking about the endorsements of retired politicians. As for more recent endorsements of active politicians, that's OK within limits. Endorsements which have received attention from news sources are particularly suitable. But if you look at articles on similar groups, i don't think you'll find many with such prominent endorsement lists.   Will Beback  talk  06:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I think one particular value in illustrating past endorsements (especially those who can be cited through third party sources as Will Beback states) is it fleshes out the organization's ideological commitments beyond a simple narrative of a few ideas the organization supports (although I'd be interesting in researching RLC a bit more and fleshing that out - issues, etc.). I think there's something to say about an endorsement for someone like Governor Mark Sanford in the past: I wouldn't think of Ron Paul in the same political space as Mark Sanford, so I feel having that information on this organization's page seems worthwhile, much like (and I was surprised by this) the entry on Forbes' endorsement in 96. I think there is definitely utility in looking back at some portion of past endorsement history. I'm curious to do some googling and add a section to see what others think. (I know Sanford is not currently in office, but I think that's a noteworthy endorsement to recognize in the history of this particular group).--Libertyconsulting (talk) 09:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, find a secondary source independent of the RLC which found these quasi-endorsements noteworthy. Otherwise we're just copying material frmo the RLC website because we find it interesting. Even if we do find such a source, it'd be more appropriate to have a one-sentence summary, something like "The RLC views politicians like John Doe, Mary Roe, and Paul Smith as its poltical antecedents", instead of a long, bulleted list. And to reiterate another point, I don't think you'll find a similar list in the article about any comparable group.   Will Beback  talk  23:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll work on finding better sources for this: is there a way to track any other comparable political pages that could use this type of improvement? It seems worthwhile making the effort. Feedback? --Libertyconsulting (talk) 21:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

There's the "Affiliated organizations" section of Template:Republican Party (United States). More broadly, there's Category:Republican Party (United States) organizations. I don't think you'll find a single one which devotes a large section to endorsements of retired politicians.   Will Beback  talk  21:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Photos

Can photos related to the organization (leadership or photos of endorsed candidates) be requested of the organization and / or the endorsed candidates in order to post here? Where do we find those resources?--Libertyconsulting (talk) 21:33, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Many individual politician biographies have photos. Photos belonging to the RLC may be released by them under a free license (which has to include possible commercial use). For more info, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. Keep in mind that extensive use of photos is controversial. In this case, it's not clear what a bunch of photos of people who are not members of the RLC would add to the article. OTOH, articles like United States presidential election, 2000 typically include portraits. My advice it to see what articles on similar groups which make endorsements do. My impression is that most do not include photos of the endorsed candidates.   Will Beback  talk  21:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)