Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:46, 11 March 2010

A nod your way

You ask: "what article is perfect and complete on day 1"? At issue primarily is not the quality of your article but the fundamental nature of it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with creating a document that lists BSA's policies, your interpretations of what you think those policies mean, and your experience about how those policies are generally enforced. That's a great Scouting webpage, blogpost, or other thing.

But the Misplaced Pages trick is, as you know, there's a huge gulf between "what I personally believe" and "what a NPOV, Verifiable Encyclopedia article should say". Your article is mostly "The BSA's Policy statements, the BSA's explanatory statements and listed points of view, and one person's comments on the matter". In essence, you cut out the controversy, creating a page that is, in essence, belongs on BSA's server far more than it belongs on Misplaced Pages.

Misplaced Pages's model is _not_ the only out there. I think the "next" wikipedia will somehow involve collaborative _opinion_ pieces in addition to just NPOV encyclopedia articles.

You say: "And while there are statements like "Gender restrictions for youth membership in Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting programs are fully enforced" that are currently unsupported, I would think that such a statement is uncontested."

It is uncontested, that's why I picked that one, rather than a controversial one, of which their are many examples also. But I picked it because that's just a great example of something that isn't an encyclopedia-- they were generally enforced when I was a scout, I've never heard of that policy not being enforce, therefore it must be fully enforced, right?

The conclusion probably is a correct one, but an encyclopedia article has a higher standard. Are there any statistics backing up which policies are more fully enforced than others? Has an independent, reliable, secondary source ever said that?

If that was the only one, it wouldn't be a big deal-- but there's lots of that in the article.

As far as gay, here is the truth of it: there are no statistics on how many gays leave BSA due to the membership policy. Neither of us truly know whether most openly gay BSA members are welcomed at the troop level, how many are considered at some point for expulsion but ultimately retained, how many are informally discouraged to leave, or how many are expelled but never speak out about it.

My guess is that many are welcomed by liberal-area troops under an informal "don't make a big deal about it and we won't either" agreement. My guess is that if the decision is made by conservative troops, councils, or BSA national, then unless you've repented of your gay ways, you wind up leaving BSA one way or another-- maybe a private talking to, maybe a formal expulsion. BSA National wants to gloss over the bad PR that comes with discriminating against kids, but they want to still be able to. That's my guess.

Your guess seems to be: Troops, liberal and conservative, are welcoming to gays so long as they don't make a big fuss over it. BSA National almost always lets gay scouts stay, unless the scout has been running a big campaign out of it and is actively trying to corrupt others. (I'm guessing about your guess)

But our guess don't make it into the article-- neither mine nor yours.

Here is all we know:

• The BSA's policy for more than a decade officially prohibited all homosexuals from registering.
• Over the course of many many years, the BSA did, in fact, expel homosexual scouts.
• The BSA's website currently makes the following statements: (all those quotes).

--Alecmconroy (talk) 03:39, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of the policies article

North, the deletion of your article was pretty well a forgone conclusion from the beginning. However, I hope you see this as a learning experience and now work constructively to improve Boy Scouts of America membership controversies. The consensus is clear that that article fits wikipedia guidelines and is the article we should have. I think you need to learn more about how wikipedia works. It is not easy and it is certainly more difficult than when I started several years ago. The folks from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Scouting are here to help. You only have to ask. Best wishes. --Bduke (Discussion) 04:46, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Let us keep the discussion here, so it is in one place. Your talk page is on my watch list, so I see your edits here. I have therefore moved the following from my talk page and replied here: --Bduke (Discussion) 20:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I think that the "controversies" article should exist, albeit with much rework so that it covers it's stated subject. I also think that coverage of noteworthy (= in controversial areas)BSA policies needs to exist somewhere, and not primarily or solely in a "criticism of" type article. Since most documented enforcement activities are documented because there was a controversy) (e.g. a court case) I guess that the latter could have a home in the "controversies" article. However I don't think that the folks behind the "controversies" article would allow such coverage to exist, identified as such. Using the Colbert line, I think they would say that the facts have a BSA bias.

the court cases are well covered in the "controversies" article and in their own articles. As to "facts", wikipedia is not about facts. We just report what others say. --Bduke (Discussion) 20:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I sincerely, think that the "controversies" article is a real mess, albeit with lots of good material in it. IMHO even the coverage of court cases is very spotty and confusing and blended with / obfuscated by other material. Somebody took down the FAR template and so practically nobody would even know it's under FAR or how to comment.

I'm trying to figure out what you meant by saying that Misplaced Pages doesn't cover facts, just what others say. Of course I understand that it covers sourced material, but I would think that the end result is that it covers factual material. North8000 (talk) 22:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I really don't know the motivation of the folks that beat this out of existence. Whether they purely want Misplaced Pages standards enforced, whether they sincerely think that such an article would inherently be badly biased, whether they knowingly want to confine coverage to articles with an anti-BSA bias or... My first guess is that they are mostly people who sincerely arrived at a very negative mis-impression of BSA in these areas, and sincerely, feel that it is "right" to make sure that the only type of coverage that occurs of this topic is of the type in a "criticism of" type article.

You say "they are mostly people who sincerely arrived at a very negative mis-impression of BSA in these areas". I think you are quite wrong. Many deletion votes came from active BSA leaders and other wikipedians like myself who are are active in the Scouting Wikiproject. That project seeks to give the best coverage of Scouting in the wikipedia way. We did not see your article as helping that goal, as it was an unhelpful fork of an article that is a FA yet one that is difficult to maintain. BTW, when I looked yesterday, the FA review of the "controversies" article, which was requested by the then coordinator of the Scouting Project, not by a critic of it, had attracted no comment. --Bduke (Discussion) 20:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the insight. As an aside, you'll note was what I said is "I really don't know" and that that was just my first guess. My guess was from trying to interpret what I was reading, mostly from folks other than yourself, with some being from overseas. And I was thinking that gay issues are so non-existent in everyday scouting that even 90% of the folks in Scouting don't understand the gay/BSA situation, and that so it would be absolutely hopeless for someone from overseas to understand the situation, and so easy to gain a misunderstanding, which seemed evident in their choice of words, like they were doing battle with evil. North8000 (talk) 22:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm from Australia, but I have followed the 3Gs (God, Gays and Girls) for 20 years or so. The internet is amazing. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You are right. We'll see where this goes. North8000 (talk) 15:45, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I was brought into this and it appears that it was a total waste of time. I'm not sure, but I think that I will drop out of any further effort in Misplaced Pages in this area. Thanks again for the note. North8000 (talk) 13:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope you will not drop out, but develop to be a valuable member of the Scouting Project. Good luck, anyway. --Bduke (Discussion) 20:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for saying that. If I found a place to contribute that didn't involve a huge amount of unpleasant arm wrestling, I think I'd still be happy to do it. North8000 (talk) 22:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

BSA policies, would love to chat more

North... thanks for your work on the policies. Sorry it got deleted. I'd love to continue chatting with you. My email address is matt@interstateq.com (it is already so publicly available I really don't care about it being listed here, lol). Hit me up sometime. Matt (talk) 13:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Matt, thanks for the message. And doubly so from someone where we saw things a bit differently. Bit burned out on this at the moment but would be more than happy to talk.

North8000 (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Region 7 National Canoe Base

A tag has been placed on Region 7 National Canoe Base requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Misplaced Pages:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content. You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. RadioFan (talk) 12:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

February 2010

Please do not remove speedy deletion notices from pages you have created yourself, as you did with Region 7 National Canoe Base. Please use the {{hangon}} template on the page instead if you disagree with the deletion, and make your case on the page's talk page. Thank you. RadioFan (talk) 12:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I asked for the deletion of the Region 7 Article. I created it in error

I asked for the deletion of the Region 7 Article. Both the creation of the article and the removal of the tag were my errors. North8000 (talk) 12:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC) I thought that I was putting it into a sandbox, and then it appeared one was SUPPOSED to deleter the tag. I asked for the removal of the article to undo my error. North8000 (talk) 12:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Carrie Newcomer

You reverted the removal of several ELs I made at Carrie Newcomer. I have redone them, one at a time, with more specific references in the edit as to why. Let me know if that isn't sufficient. Novaseminary (talk) 15:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)