Talk:The Doe Fund

NPOV Dispute

Hi there. I'm concerned about the NPOV message on the page which says:

Many sections are promotional. article appears to bury the substantiated and documented criticism under a pile of promotional writing about the org. Please integrate better. Article lopsided at present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [index.php?title=User:Fallafelsnwaffles&action=edit&redlink=1 Fallafelsnwaffles] ([index.php?title=User_talk:Fallafelsnwaffles&action=edit&redlink=1 talk] • contribs) 03:37, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I did the version of the edit that's being referred to and I'm not sure why my edit would be considered promotional, let alone 'piled' with promotion, but I'm a newbie Wikipedian so I probably need some guidance.

I'm a lifelong editor and writer for newspapers, magazines and books. I've been a staffer at three newspapers, and my work has appeared in the New York Times, Esquire, New York Magazine and other places. I knew my background might be a negative in terms of resisting the urge to do independent reporting but I hoped it would help with neutrality. I'd like to do more editing here as I recently lost my job and have more time.

The help sections say Wikipedia strongly prefers journalistic style writing that is well organized with a natural flow. I reorganized and added to the existing headers because it seemed to me that material that belonged in same category or should have appeared in close proximity was spread out, making the article harder to follow.

As far as negative stuff goes, I didn't remove much, I don't think, and I added some. I made the removals because the facts as stated changed since their inclusion or weren't properly documented. For example, the article stated that a cash prize accompanying a Lifetime Achievement Award presented to The Doe Fund's founder was misappropriated because the check was meant for The Doe Fund, not him. Subsequently, the foundation that made the award released a clarification saying the money was his to dispose of as he liked. I'll be glad to explain other omissions in more detail if that helps; I might be mistaken about some, but I really don’t think I could have made a "pile" of mistakes.

Before doing my edit, I read a bunch of other entries about nonprofits to see what kind of balance they struck, and they were all at least as positive as the article I wrote, even though most had been publicly criticized. Plus, they’re nonprofits -- we're not exactly talking about Enron or abortion or some other patently controversial subject.

Anyhow, sorry if I was long winded here. I tried my best to be brief, but I am not of the Twitter generation. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.Brasscupcakes (talk) 01:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Fallafelsnwaffles seems to have done a drive-by tagging of the article, which is particularly unhelpful. The instructions for initiating an NPOV debate instruct the tagger to:

clearly and exactly explain which part of the article does not seem to have a NPOV and why. Make some suggestions as to how one can improve the article. Be active and bold in improving the article.

Without specifics beyond "article lopsided" or examples of "promotional writing" it is hard to know how to address Fallafelsnwaffles's concerns. This is covered on the page about tagging pages for problems:

Especially in the case of a tag such as {{npov}}, complaints left at a talkpage need to be actionable, so that editors can attempt to address them. It is not helpful to say simply "The article is biased." Instead, some details should be given to help other editors understand what needs to be fixed or discussed.

The description of an NPOV dispute reads

Everyone can agree that marking an article as having an NPOV dispute is a temporary measure, and should be followed up by actual contributions to the article in order to put it in such a state that people agree that it is neutral.

As the user who placed the dispute tag seems to have been uninterested in discussion, I will go over the article removing any unsubstantiated claims and make any adjustments I can see to give it a more neutral tone. If within a week of those edits there is still no involvement by either of the users involved in the dispute, I will remove the {{npov}} tag. —WAvegetarian (talk) 12:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I have just done a major rewrite of the article, which I hope will address the neutrality concerns expressed above. I hadn't initially intended to do a full rewrite, but sometimes editing gets the best of one. I added some new independent sources, corrected some factual inaccuracies, removed an unencyclopedic section, and rewrote the article in encyclopedic voice. The article is on its way to "good article" status. Next steps for development would be to clarify/confirm image release status and to flesh out social ventures beyond RWA. I'll take down the {{NPOV}} tags if no more/concrete concerns are raised in the next week. —WAvegetarian (talk) 22:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Another good place to work would be fleshing out the lead to better summarize the article. So, those are my suggestions for next edits to improve the article. I think it's fine as is, but could be a good article with a little bit more work. —WAvegetarian (talk) 22:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the {{NPOV}} tags as this dispute seems to be resolved.—WAvegetarian (talk) 00:13, 9 June 2012 (UTC)