User talk:Bluerasberry/cr

This page was nominated for deletion on 2014-06-13. The result of the discussion was Keep.

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Hi Blue. In general I think the article is far too long. The number of sections and sub-sections can be cut to about one-third and the article could be made about 30 percent shorter. For example, the Access to Information section could just have one paragraph for each topic without separate sub-sections. History can be trimmed to 4 sub-sections and a lot of these could be consolidated under Campaigns. The lawsuits should be merged with History and the Operations section could mostly be merged with other topics without sub-heads. The Key People should be removed with just a few kept in the Infobox.

I also think there's a lot of general editorializing. Some of the editorializing is promotional. In other cases, Consumer Reports is beating up on themselves too harshly. In others, it gets into a discussion on the industry in general instead of the company specifically.

All-in-all I would give it a close review to be as concise as possible with the aim of reducing the number of sub-heads by about 70 percent and the overall size by about 40 percent. CorporateM (Talk) 19:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good advice. At this point rather than deleting content, I forked some into User:Bluerasberry/History of Consumer Reports. As you said, I combined the lawsuits into the history section then trimmed it all, putting the complete stories into the history article. It is unorthodox to have a separate history article for an organization, but also I would not want anyone to say that I omitted to name controversies. The content is well-referenced, I think, and despite it being more information than most people will expect I still think it could have a place somewhere. I will enact your other suggestions soon. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the table of key persons.

Extended content

Key persons

The following persons have served in official roles with Consumers Union.^{[citation needed]}

Persons at Consumers Union
person	occupation	role at CU	affiliation dates
Arthur Kallet	engineer	founder, executive director	1936-1957?
Colston Warne	professor of economics	founder, executive director, board member	1936-1980?
Dexter Masters	journalist	technical director	1936-?
Robert A. Brady	economist	CU founder, vice president	1936-?
J. Robert Oppenheimer	nuclear physicist	advisory board	1938-39
Edward Reich	educator	advisory board	1943-1973
Mildred Edie Brady	journalist	editorial director, senior reporter	1958?–1965?
Ralph Nader	lawyer	advisory board	1965?-1974?
Rhoda H. Karpatkin	lawyer	president	1974-2000
James A. Guest	laywer	board member, president	1981-present
Craig Newmark	Craigslist founder	advisory board	?-present

This material should just be integrated into the article, or maybe in the navigational box at bottom. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I removed a table of lawsuits.

Extended content

Legal cases

Consumer Reports is a product testing organization. Throughout its existence, manufacturers have criticized Consumer Reports for the way it tests products, and have occasionally filed lawsuits in response to Consumer Reports' reporting. Here are some of the organization's major law cases relating to product testing.

Legal Cases involving Consumers Union or Consumer Reports
case name	other party	product	nature of complaint	more
Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc.	Bose Corporation	Loudspeaker	Consumer Reports' ratings are inappropriate
Suzuki Samurai v Consumers Union	Suzuki	Automobile	Consumer Reports' ratings are inappropriate
Sharper Image v. Consumers Union	The Sharper Image	Air purifier	Consumer Reports' ratings are inappropriate	^[1]
Consumers Union v. General Signal	General Signal	Vacuum cleaner	manufacturer used CR ratings and name in advertising	^[2]^[3]

I thought that it would be better to integrate this content into the article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On further thought - I am reconsidering whether and where key persons should be listed. I think again that they should, but that it should not be in the main article. I put a list of the people in the article at user:bluerasberry/History of Consumer Reports. The reason why I do not think the list should only be in the navbox is because there is no place for citations or explanations there. I do not think this should only be mixed into the article, because a standalone list has proven useful for organizations like universities which often have lists of their people either in a category or in some section or both. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article rearrangement

I am employed as the Wikipedian in Residence at Consumer Reports. I have some article revisions which I would like to merge into the articles for Consumer Reports. Here is what I propose.

I would like to incorporate the content in this proposal into the articles at Consumer Reports and Consumers Union. Here is what I propose:

Consumer Reports -> rename to Consumer Reports (publication) ->merge with or be replaced by user:bluerasberry/cr (magazine)
Consumers Union ->rename to Consumer Reports -> merge with or be replaced by user:bluerasberry/cr

I comment on the nature of the revisions elsewhere, but in any case, the current article titles are confusing. I think there should be an article on the publication and an article on the organization. Right now these concepts are mixed and there is information about both the organization and the publication in both articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

Michael F. Jacobson and CR staff seem to have collaborated multiple times on food safety projects. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source for 1960 car safety info

In 1960 Edward R. Murrow did a documentary about car safety called "The Great Holiday Massacre". Some internal records at Consumer Reports say that this documentary was related to Consumer Reports' advocacy, but I have been unable to find the documentary or any review of it. It is on Worldcat. Perhaps it could be checked another time. I think this might be a review of Consumer Reports advocacy for automobile safety features. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

^
- Walter, Rob (January 22, 2006). "Getting Through the Filter". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 October 2012.
- editor, Stephen L. Vaughn, (2008). Encyclopedia of American journalism (1st pbk ed. ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-0415969505. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Dougherty, Philip H. (October 10, 1983). "ADVERTISING - Regina Still Restrained On Consumer Reports". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
^ CONSUMERS UNION OF UNITED STATES, INC v. GENERAL SIGNAL CORP. and Grey Advertising, 724 F.2d 1044 (United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Dec. 6, 1983).

[sharpersuit-1] 
Walter, Rob (January 22, 2006). "Getting Through the Filter". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 October 2012.

editor, Stephen L. Vaughn, (2008). Encyclopedia of American journalism (1st pbk ed. ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-0415969505. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[2] Walter, Rob (January 22, 2006). "Getting Through the Filter". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 October 2012.

[3] tor, Stephen L. Vaughn, (2008). Encyclopedia of American journalism (1st pbk ed. ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-0415969505. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[2] Dougherty, Philip H. (October 10, 1983). "ADVERTISING - Regina Still Restrained On Consumer Reports". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 January 2013.

[3] CONSUMERS UNION OF UNITED STATES, INC v. GENERAL SIGNAL CORP. and Grey Advertising, 724 F.2d 1044 (United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Dec. 6, 1983).

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