Talk:Target Corporation

Anti-gay campaign donation... ONE sentence???

This support wavered in July 0f 2010, due to the donation of $150,000 to support the election of an anti-gay rights GOP candidate for Minnesotan governor. That's ALL?! --98.232.176.109 (talk) 02:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• The bigger issue is political contributions and lobbying in general, imo. I added the relevant link to FollowTheMoney.org although this may be something which should be added to the corporation template. Flatterworld (talk) 13:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Best Buy got an entire short section for their $100k donation to the same group. Huw Powell (talk) 00:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

If Best Buy jumped off a bridge, should we do it too? Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Adding footprint image

I want to add an image of Target's footprint within the US. However, I'd like to get some input before I do so. First, the image: File:Target footprint.png
Does anybody have any preferences for appearance?

• The color of the dots
• The inclusion of counties (I really wanted to include those because of the way Target diversifies its footprint in rural locations; from I can see they don't have more than one branch in a single zip code)
• The size of the dots, size of the state lines, etc.

It's pretty easy for me to change any of this as it's generated on the fly on my computer. Thoughts? Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC) Addendum: the final version would include Alaska/Hawaii. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Per lack of any discussion otherwise, I've included the image as is. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't bring it up because I didn't know where you were going to throw it. A while ago, another editor did some map using what appeared to be Microsoft Streets and Tips of all the distribution centers and threw it on the bottom of the article in such a way that it spanned the entire width of the page, and I think I removed it because I thought it was completely random. It would be more informative if it was a gif animated over time by year, and also if other editors knew how to reproduce it so they can do something like this in other articles such as Wal-Mart. Tuxide (talk) 03:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well for one, I already did Wal-Mart :). For another, they can't reproduce it, unless they're good enough at programming to write code to download an image, edit the image on the fly, and save the image, and then write an ad-hoc script for each corporation's website which can pump into another program/script and be run with the proper variables to ensure the right appearance. I am considering making parts of the script public or putting it on the toolserver. As for the time-lapsed map, I could only do that if I could somehow gain access to information on when each store was opened. It's not at target.com. Magog the Ogre (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess you would have to ask the company directly if such a service was exposed to the public. Target once had a map on their corporate website (in Flash I think) that showed state expansion over time, so it must have pulled its information from some service. The data they used in their annual reports and SEC filings must come from somewhere as well. I can write a web crawler myself just fine and extract the coordinate data from the DOM tree, but what dependency did you use to generate the map image? If I recall, Target opens new units every four months so it will have to be regenerated triannually. Also, unless you wrote it in such a way where it is smart enough to detect where exactly in the DOM tree the coord data is instead of hard-coding its XPath, you would also have to change your script every time they do something to their underlying site template. Tuxide (talk) 06:48, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

1) I did not write the script in such a way that it will autoupdate. I wrote a webcrawler ad-hoc, as I do for any of my maps, save maps of banks which I can just get from the FDIC. I might be haughty enough to think I'm good, but I'm not that good. It will simply run out-of-date in a few months; feel free to put "as of August 2010". 2) It isn't coordinate data, it's zip code data, so the dots are approximate and set to a minor database I created by webcrawling a major map engine. 3) I have never worked in Flash, so it would be very difficult to extract the information from anything in Flash. If flash is compiled rather than implemented, it would make things difficult enough that I'd rather not do it (decoding transmissions on compiled text is difficult to the point of insanity). 4) As someone who's worked for a large corporation before, you'd be surprised about that data. In my case, we didn't even bother keeping data on when something was opened, let alone publishing it (some of the other information that wasn't available to us was borderline illegal for not being so... eh not going there anymore). If you want to contact a corporate representative and ask for the data, I say go for it. I'll be glad to run the data over my map. Magog the Ogre (talk) 09:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Easy man, I know these things. I also hold a BS in CS and I'm ABD on my masters. I don't really want to write my own, but you still didn't answer my question on what you used to actually plot the maps. I didn't consider you were using zipcodes; I just saw that the coords were on the individual store pages such as this one. Look for the subtree that makes up the zoombar, and also the Get Directions form. Tuxide (talk) 15:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I just crawled http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/state_listing.jsp and ripped each zip code listed on the page. If you'd really like it, I can provide you with the source. I'll give you a peek:

  $requestb = HTTP::Request->new(GET => "http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/state_results.jsp?state=".$1);
  $htmlstores = $ua->request($requestb)->content;
  while ($htmlstores =~ /&nbsp;(\d{5})\<\/td\>/g)
    {print ", ".(0+$1); # 0 + numerical string -> integer, thus removing leading 0's, lest C think this is an octal variable}

Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

No that's fine; you don't have to provide me with source, I know what you did on the web extraction part. You're obviously not using XSLT or XPath in the first place like I would've done it. If you don't want to say what library you used for the image generation part like I've been requesting, then you don't have to say that either. Tuxide (talk) 22:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

They are svg maps; I've generated them by calculating then appending the circles to the svg maps, and finally converting it by hand to png via GIMP. There were no libraries other than the ones I created. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

You still have to know where exactly the zip codes are on the maps. But I'll assume you figured out a way to do that already. Tuxide (talk) 00:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Originally I downloaded a file for it, but it was old, so I wrote a script to decode it directly by accessing the AJAX at MapQuest. The Supreme Court has ruled that information is not copyrightable, so I believe I'm in the clear. My only regret was making 100,000 hits to MapQuest (00000-99999) to create my small database. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality questioned

While I believe the article needs to reference Target's recent controversial political contribution to Minnesota Forward, I do not agree that this donation merits half of the article's introduction. While this recent act by Target has garnered considerable press, prominently mentioning it in the article's introduction creates the impression that this one act is one of the single most significant elements of this 60+ billion dollar company with 50 years of history. Content related to this recent current event should reside in the body of the article, perhaps with a one sentence reference in the introduction. Mill1627 (talk) 23:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I concur with the part that this does not belong in the main. It was added today and it's been removed before, so I took the liberty to remove it again. Tuxide (talk) 00:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

It should be a small but clear paragraph in a "controversies"-type section, way down low, as it was the last time I saw at Best Buy. Certainly not part of the lead. PS, also last I checked, there was no article here (or home page either!) for Minnesota Forward, which is really where the details belong, eventually. IMNSHO. Huw Powell (talk) 04:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Target is not backing/supporting Emmer

Some of the wording in the paragraph gives the impression that Target donated directly to Emmer, which is absolutely not true. I seriously doubt that at the time of their donation, Target knew that MN-Forward would put out ads in support of Emmer. 64.184.253.134 (talk) 05:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No it doesn't. First it says that target gave money to minnesota Forward. Then it quotes "Minnesota State Representative Ryan Winkler said it was unwise for Target Corporation to back Emmer, because his controversial views on immigration, LGBT rights, and decreasing the minimum wage for restaurant workers could upset Target shoppers". The real question is, did the Target execs who made this decision know what MF stood for? Surely they did. Huw Powell (talk) 05:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why everyone's getting so worked up about this... probably in the rile-up-your-supporters blogosphere. It's a company giving money to a legislator, while that legislator happens to support something controversial, as if that never happened before. As far as I'm concerned, the whole damned controversy section should be wiped out and only he very most notable incidents. Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It has resulted in weird apologies from Target's CEO. The company did not "[give] money to a legislator", they gave it to a PAC of some sort that is still lacking an article here, which used the money to run ads for one candidate for governor in MN. "That" hasn't really happened much before, because it wasn't legal. But after the Citizens vs. case, it is. Huw Powell (talk) 09:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

And the very next sentence in the article says... what? 64.184.253.134 (talk) 17:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I obviously have to spell it out: "Indeed, LGBT and progressive groups have expressed disappointment with Target Corporation for its support of Emmer, and some have called for a boycott of Target stores." Did you catch it? "Indeed, LGBT and progressive groups have expressed disappointment with Target Corporation for its support of Emmer, and some have called for a boycott of Target stores." Target did not support Emmer. 64.184.253.134 (talk) 01:19, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

HRC has dropped Target

Why isn't this mentioned in the article?? Its a big deal --98.232.176.109 (talk) 05:25, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

OK this explains a bit

I knew something was fishy about going after an organization that gave money to a group that in turn gave it to a Republican (*gasp*), now someone sent me a link that seems to prove my point: [2] (please ignore the incorrect statement about 2007). Someone please tell me why I shouldn't consider the massive amount of people coming to this article with a vendetta over this issue to be anything other than biased? As far as I'm concerned, the text needs to be completely rewritten to include MoveOn.org or remove the issue altogether, as it reeks of astroturfing. Please also note, I am *not* a partisan to this; I have no vendetta either way, but I have little tolerance personally for people who edit with an agenda. Magog the Ogre (talk) 12:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)