Talk:Pacific Legal Foundation

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NPOV/Advertising Issues

This page is clearly written like an advertisement. It only discusses the group's successes, and includes contact info for all branch offices. It leaves out significant cases such as tobacco litigation that might not be viewed favorably.

Sourcewatch has an an article that errs the other way in terms of POV, but might include some sources for adding balance here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Legal_Foundation

I am not an experienced editor, not in a position to devote time to this, and may have my own neutrality conflicts, so I do not think I am the person for the job. This "article" clearly needs work though.

67.164.92.164 (talk) 05:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you can identify anything on the page that you consider to be untruthful or deceptive, it would be useful if you could do so. Otherwise, your drive-by tagging of the page is unhelpful. Suggesting the Sourcewatch hatchet-job for "balance" is preposterous, to put it mildly. However, it was previously listed as a resource for those who believe they would benefit from access to unverified attacks from the Left, and probably should be restored for that purpose. The majority of the cases that are mentioned on the page are victories at the U.S. Supreme Court and State Supreme Courts. If you want to include all cases where PLF filed an amicus brief, such as the tobacco case you mentioned, feel free to do so. It will amount to thousands of cases, and I don't see how it will affect your one-man "dispute" over the page's veracity.

Rsradford (talk) 22:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not disputing the veracity of the article. I am disputing its POV. You state that the majority of cases mentioned are victories - that's exactly my point. Has PLF never lost a significant case? I'm trying to find someone (not me) who can put in the time to add some balance. I agree that the Sourcewatch article is highly flawed - that's why I didn't actually add it to the article.

A5553434 (talk) 18:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For public-interest litigation, shouldn't the standard for inclusion be noteworthiness, rather than whether the case was won or lost? PLF has indeed lost some cases at the federal and state supreme courts, but those cases had little or no impact on the law, by definition. (The government just kept on doing what it was doing.) The victories, cases like Nollan, Palazzolo, and Hi-Voltage, made important changes in the law. That is the same reason the Wikipedia pages for liberal public-interest groups like NRDC mention only the group's landmark victories. What difference does it make how often they lost, if those losses did not establish any legal principle? Similarly, take a look at the Sierra Club's page if you want to see an example of breathless self-promotion. They even include the fact that they endorsed Obama for president! There's no indication that the group ever undertook a campaign that failed, or ran into policy disputes among their members, etc. Do you think someone should slap a "Disputed" tag on the Sierra Club page? They're not lying or misrepresenting the group's accomplishments, so what would be the point? The same reasoning should apply to the PLF page, imo. Sauce for the goose, and all that. Rsradford (talk) 23:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

From Wikipedia's NPOV Dispute page: "If your sole contribution to an article is to repeatedly add or remove the tag, chances are high that you are abusing your 'right' to use the tag." This article conforms to the standards generally applicable to articles on non-profit, public-interest law firms and related organizations. No one has disputed its accuracy or neutrality within that context, other than you. Your only contribution, besides tagging the article, has been to suggest that material should be imported from a blatantly ideological hatchet-piece that relies entirely on falsehoods, distortions, and innuendo. This is not a legitimate "dispute," but simply a statement of your personal likes and dislikes. As such, the "Disputed" tag should be removed. If you disagree, please specify exactly what changes you believe should be made, and I will request that the same changes be implemented to the articles on all comparable Left-liberal non-profits.Rsradford (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the tags, which were apparently placed on the article solely because of one anonymous editor's dissatisfaction with the ideological orientation of Pacific Legal Foundation. In well over a month, no one has stepped forward to identify any genuine "dispute" about the accuracy of the page's content. Similarly, no one has identified any POV issues that are not standard in articles for Left-liberal public-interest organizations. If the entire approach to presenting information on public-interest groups is to be changed, the same changes should be applied uniformly throughout Wikipedia. Rsradford (talk) 19:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have re-added the NPOV and advert tags. The article is virtually a press release.