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Copyright violations

The "About the Founder" and parts of "In the Media" appear to be copied from the copyrighted page:

http://turningpointusa.net/boardofdirectors/

--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Controversy over controversial controversy claim in "Controversy" section

This edit removed a large section of well sourced text reading: "First appearing on November 21st, 2016, Turning Point USA also operates a website called Professor Watchlist in order to 'expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values, and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.' The website lists academics who “promote anti-American, leftwing propaganda in the classroom” according to a blog post by Charlie Kirk. Tips are accepted from the public, and over 200 professors are currently listed. The website has been criticized as racist and pro-fascist, using surveillance type propaganda to manipulate ideas of truth, equality, and freedom."

The removal was explained as "I removed content that contained false information and also no indication that anything was controversial about the idea discussed."

The editor is not clear about what they feel is "false information" and everything is quite well sourced. The section did not say anything was controversial about the "idea". Rather, it said there has been controversy: Turning Point (obviously) thinks the project is a good idea, others -- as sourced -- have criticized it. That is the essence of controversy. - SummerPhD 05:30, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

References

1. About, Turning Point USA, 2016, retrieved 21 November 2016
2. Kirk, Charlie (2016-11-21). "It's time we expose professors pushing agendas in their classroom". Retrieved 2016-12-02.
3. Sidahmed, Mazin (2016-12-02). "Professor Watchlist website elicits both fear and ridicule in US universities". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
4. Mele, Christopher (28 November 2016), Professor Watchlist Is Seen as Threat to Academic Freedom, The New York Times, retrieved 28 November 2016 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
5. Schuman, Rebecca (23 November 2016), Oh Good, a “Professor Watch List”, Slate, retrieved 28 November 2016 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
6. Flaherty, Colleen (22 November 2016), Being Watched, Inside Higher Ed, retrieved 28 November 2016

Proposed merge with Hypeline News

No signs of notability of Hypeline News independent of Turning Point USA, and half of the content in Hypeline News is a quotation from their website and doesn't really belong anyway. So, a merger would be essentially an acknowledgement at Turning Point USA that Hypeline News exists. Largoplazo (talk) 23:38, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• Move. Zero notability beyond the affiliation with Turning Point USA. JSFarman (talk) 17:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
• I decided to be bold and I just turned Hypeline into a redirect to TPUSA. JSFarman (talk) 17:26, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Clean-Up

I've gone ahead and cleaned up the article. The basic changes include:

• I removed a lot of redundant facts stated in the article's lead that are repeated in the body
• Removed a lot of excessive facts about Charlie Kirk that are already on his page (we don't need two Charlie Kirk articles)
• Restructured the controversy section and condensed the sections concerning affiliated groups and individuals (we don't need each sentence to have its own break in-between).
• Removed the "In the Media" section, because quite frankly, this section - while well-sourced - boiled down to just a collection of interviews with Charlie Kirk; again, extremely redundant and somewhat self-promoting (better fit for his article).
• As per the above section detailing how the article for Hypeline News has since been deleted and turned into a redirect for TPUSA, there's really no reason for the bit in the lead about Hypeline since it's just another project of TPUSA that's not nearly as noteworthy as, say, the Professor Watchlist. There's also the fact that the one and only source for the bit about Hypeline was from Hypeline itself - once more, very self-promoting.

104.52.53.152 (talk) 01:46, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

"has been described as an alt-right organization" in Lead

The two reliable sources cited, New Republic and The Daily Dot, do not describe the organization as alt-right. The only sources cited that support that claim are "SocialistWorker.org" and "AcadaDemeBlog", neither of which are WP:RS. This line is not supported and should be removed from the Lead. Marquis de Faux (talk) 16:15, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Allegations of Racism Do Not (Yet) Belong in Lede

The racism allegations against Turning Point USA do not belong in the lede of this article because they are not yet reliably substantiated nor have they been shown to have impacted the organization to a degree meriting the info's position at the top of the article. The existing source for these allegations cite (1) a recently fired employee and (2) an unnamed source. There can be a section in the article about the issue, but it is neither reliable nor impactful enough to rise to the lede. It's inclusion right now is flippant to the seriousness of the allegation and disingenuous about its veracity.

To include in lede, one of these things (or something like it) should first occur: (a) accusations are filed in a non-frivilous civil suit; (b) Turning Point confirms the allegations; or (c) the allegations have a significant and lasting effect on the organization.

(the article cited: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity) Lukacris (talk) 17:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

That isn't a standard adopted by the community as far as I know. The relevant guideline is WP:LEAD--which only says that the lead should summarize the subject's most important points. An unsubstantiated, unimpactful allegation can certainly be one of its most important points, especially if it received widespread media attention. In this case, the story was covered not only by The New Yorker but also by other reliable sources such as The Daily Beast, The Hill, and Newsweek. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:05, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman I simply don't understand your point that something can be "one of its most important points" if it is also unimpactful and unsubstantiated. We should be mindful of the political nature of this organization that tends to motivate a degree of news coverage out of whack with what's really there. Also, right-wing groups get smeared as racist on a fairly regular basis. I bring this up because the number of publications that ran with this story does not necessary bear on the accusations' veracity or impact. More news stories with the same suspect sourcing don't help. Now, if these poorly-sourced news stories have a palpable effect on the organization rising to the level of being "one of most important points," then it should go in the lede-- this is not the case. If the accusations were themselves more reliable, that might also qualify it for lede. Lukacris (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

If I publicly accused Meryl Streep of animal sacrifice and media outlets ran with my accusations (without reliable corroboration), then it wouldn't belong in her lede unless it had some meaningful impact on her biography. Lukacris (talk) 23:39, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The standards for inclusion here are WP:V, WP:WEIGHT and WP:LEDE.

If someone files a civil suit -- whether or not you or anyone else judges it to be "non-frivolous" -- it may or may not merit inclusion here. It depends on coverage by reliable sources.

It's rather ludicrous to expect an organization to say, "Yes, we are racist." Heck, white supremacist organizations playing word games to say they aren't white supremacist/racist/etc. are twelve for ten cents. (That some organizations are caught with their pants down far enough to spout b.s. pseudo-apologies for "actions by some of (their) members which may have been seen as inappropriate" not withstanding.)

What constitutes a "significant and lasting effect" for a tiny group that's all of five years old? Are we waiting for a report saying they've had trouble recruiting over the past decade because of an extensive and on-going series of allegations?

Let's try an absurdly obvious case that would fail your criteria but obviously be a defining characteristic of a group: An organization forms and, within 3 months of forming, every source discussing the group says unequivocally in the first sentence that they are a racist organization. No lawsuit, no self-identification, no "significant, lasting impact". In that case, as in EVERY case, it's a matter of sources and weight.

At the moment, we have high quality sources reporting the charge. I'd say the section is appropriate. For the lede, summary of a section is appropriate. Heck, at present it's a rather small part of the lede, at the very end. Keep in mind that that short summary is for the longest section of the article (other than the catch-all "Other controversies"). - SummerPhD 01:03, 10 January 2018 (UTC)'

My primary disagreement with SummerPhD is that these sources are not high quality. The sources of the articles are a recently-fired employee and an unnamed source-- The sources are perfectly adequate to show that the allegations exist and what they are, but not whether they are reliable, damning, legally problematic, or at all important. No sane person takes at face value public criticisms of an organization by a person it just fired. Right wing political groups are publicly maligned as racist so often that it's practically white noise, so the existence of the allegation itself does not ipso facto prove its significance. Including the allegation in the lede is not a neutral choice; its inclusion implies a judgment that the allegation is significant.

Re: admission by the organization: It's not ludicrous to hold out for the organization confirming that some of the events from the accusation did occur (and probably that the particular person was fired). I bring up the non-frivilous civil suit as a possible standard because there are sanctions that exist in court but not in the press about the veracity of factual allegations (btw an actual judge judges whether a suit is frivolous (i.e., defendant succeeds on a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss)), and because an employment discrimination lawsuit will almost-certainly follow if there is truth or provability to the allegations.

I know I'm repeating myself, but this distinction is important: Sources reliably supporting the allegation's existence are not adequate. We need a source showing that the allegations are significant. Significance cannot be implied merely by the number of outlets who covered the story because of the political context here. Lukacris (talk) 02:07, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The allegation is significant. That determination was made by editors at multiple reputable news outlets (The New Yorker, The Daily Beast, The Hill, Newsweek). Yes, significance can be implied by the number of outlets that covered it. That's how it's regularly done here. These outlets decided that the allegations were credible and newsworthy enough to publish and promote. There's nothing unique about these allegations or the sources that exempts them from our usual practices. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The sources are not a recently-fired employee and an unnamed source. The sources are The New Yorker, The Daily Beast, The Hill and Newsweek. Those are high quality, reliable sources. The issue is not whether the accusations are "reliable, damning, legally problematic, or at all important". The issues are whether the material in the section is verifiable, it's weight and whether we summarize it in the lede. The existence of the allegations is verifiable (cited to several reliable sources). The strength of those sources supported the creation of the section. The existence and size of that section has us summarizing it in the lede. - SummerPhD 20:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree with Summer that the lead should include material proportionally to the body. But I do agree with the broader point. The content is verifiable because it is supported by reliable sources. And once you cross the verifiability threshold, questions of weight/lead generally have nothing to do with the strength of the sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

SummerPhDv2.0, I think we're talking past each other on the sourcing issue. Those articles reliably attest to the existence of the allegations and are adequate sources for that fact. But the articles' sources are a recently-fired employee and a John Doe. For that reason, the articles do not adequately support the fact of the accusation's veracity. The remaining question then is whether the existence of the accusation is significant enough for the lede. It's been written about by several publishers, but I'm not convinced that one-round of cursory press coverage is sufficient absent some palpable effect on the organization or buttressing of the allegations' veracity (this point is debatable). Lukacris (talk) 21:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Placing the allegations in the lead section does not imply anything about their veracity. We place unproven allegations in the lead sections of our articles all the time. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:42, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree, Dr. Fleischman. However, it does imply significance, significance comes from veracity or from effect, and I see neither here. At any rate, I think I've made my point already and am content to table the issue. Lukacris (talk) 21:46, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

No, that's not generally how it's done here. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

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