Talk:Tea Party movement

Genealogy of the movement

I think it would be helpful to break down the different entities that make up this movement. Here are two segments from the Rachel Maddow Show that cover the different organizations, although the segments are probably too POV to use as sources. Below that is a list of the key groups we might include. Thoughts?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/34626539#34626539 (starting 2:45) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/34815564#34815564 (starting 1:50)

• Libertarian anti-tax movement ~ Original pre-Obama activists
• 9-11 Truth Movement ~ December 16,2006 - Boston Harbor - photo from Boston Sunday Globe: [[1]]. The following year the same Boston Truth organizers (affiliated with We Are Change Boston, a 9-11 first responders advocacy group) co-organized the two day event in parallel with the December 16, Ron Paul fundraiser (Dubbed Boston Tea Party07) which broke the record for a one-day fund-raiser of a Republican presidential candidate Boston Globe article

-From the Boston 9-11 Truth 2007 event announcement (linked above):

EMAIL INVITATION: Please forward widely. Thank you.

Are you comfortable with the direction in which our great country is going? Are you content to continue paying for policies and programs you don't support? There was a time, not so far in our past, that the men and women of this country felt the same.

On December 16th, 1773, American colonists dumped tea into the Boston Harbor to protest an oppressive tax. This December 16th, American citizens will dump millions of dollars into the Ron Paul presidential campaign to protest the oppressive and unconstitutional inflation tax - which has enabled a flawed foreign policy, a costly war and the sacrificing of our liberties here at home.

Please join us this December 16th 2007 for the largest one-day political donation event in history. Our goal is to bring together 100,000 people to donate $100 each, creating a one day donation total of $10,000,000. http://www.teaparty07.com/

- Event info (Bolded text - emphasis mine):

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2007 The Destruction of World Trade Center Towers 1,2 and 7: A Case for Controlled Demolition. Faneuil Hall, Boston, 10:00am - 5:00pm - $25 ($15 for students and seniors)

9/11 Sent Them to War: Testimonies and Strategies on Ending the War and Restoring the Constitution Faneuil Hall, Boston, 7:00pm - 9:00pm - $15 ($10 for students and seniors)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2007 Boston Tea Party for 911 Truth Boston Common, noon - 2:pm Evelyn Mokely Bridge, 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm

- From Boston Globe article linked above (Bolded text - emphasis mine):

McIntosh said 400 supporters later marched to Faneuil Hall, where about 700 people listened to speeches by Rand Paul, the candidate's son, Carla Howell, a libertarian who ran unsuccessfully for Massachusetts governor in 2002, and others.

Supporters also re-enacted the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor, by tossing banners that read "tyranny" and "no taxation without representation" into boxes that were placed in front of an image of the harbor.

• Tea Party Patriots ~ Grassroots group with help from Freedomworks
• Tea Party Express ~ Bus tour run by consulting firm Russo Marsh and Associates (Move America Forward)
• Tea Party Nation ~ Holding a National Convention in February with Sarah Palin as a speaker. (Star Tribune news story)

MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 18:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the last bullet point slightly, and added a source. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Added 9-11 Movement info and links --Ayebretwalda (talk) 05:58, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

lead/lede

The article lead contained multiple errors of fact and POV pushing vis-a-vis that the movement has risen up as an anti-Obama movement, making it appear that as soon as he was inaugurated, protests began against him. This is not at all true. The movement originated in Seattle Washington because of frustration over the stimulus package. It gained ground after the March 2009 disclosure of the AIG executive pay bonuses, and the increasing number of home mortgage foreclosures despite provisions in the bill to support the banks holding the notes. Also note, that it is a grass-roots movement and also, it is not accurate to call it a conservative movement. People of all races and political persuasions have joined this movement. Please do not make changes without first discussing them here. Thanks.Malke2010 07:35, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

You say that the other editors are pushing POV and that it is not accurate to call the Tea Party movement conservative. Most of the news reports I have seen do call it a conservative movement. Or a libertarian movement which, in common parlance, is on the conservative side of things. Our guide, especially on controversial matters, should be what is verifiable through the majority of reliable, secondary sources, not what someone thinks is true. Also, the way I read the article, it's not an anti-Obama movement; it's an anti-stimulus/anti-TARP movement.

By the way, do you have a reference for Seattle being the origin of the movement; that is, the first time the term Tea Party was ever used about this movement? I think we should limit ourselves in this article to situations where the term Tea Party was used, except in History where you can go back to Boston or even Ancient Greece, if you have the sources. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

here is the first mention I found. There are several others. [2]. This guy also mentions how the professional types have intruded on the movement. That can be included in the article, but these professionals should not dominate because it gives them WP:UNDUE and this is an article about the movement that started. The professionals didn't start it. Average people did.Malke2010 18:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

And here, [3]. This talks about the average people and their reaction to the invasion of the partisan groups like MoveOn.org and Freedom Works, etc.Malke2010 21:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Here too, the grass-roots protesters are protesting the addition of people like Newt Gingrich, et al. [4].

Yes, I am gathering several reliable sources now. BTW, there is an editor from Barack Obama's page, The Magnificent Clean Keeper who just reverted my edit without using the talk page. He has a history of doing this and being disruptive to discussions on the Obama talk page. I removed the entire paragraph until this issue can be settled.

I am happy to work cooperatively to bring this article at least to a good article status. When I finish gathering the sources, when you read them, you will see what I'm talking about. The people participating, the average people, not the pundits or the money making news shows and their commentators, have a lot to say and none of what they have to say is being represented in this article.

At best, this article doesn't deserve more than a few sections. All the rest of the pundits going back and forth, Glenn Beck versus Olberman/Maddow, etc., none of that needs to be here more than as a mention that it set off a media frenzy.

What really needs to also be here instead of all that, is a section on how the partisan groups and commentators on both sides have tried to usurp the movement or attach themselves to it. The average guy showing up at these rallies is not any of the things these commentators and pundits etc., are. I'm going to go and get the reference for the housewife. I'll add it to this post.Malke2010 17:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Please see List of Tea Party protests, 2009 for lots and lots of references. Having read many hundreds of references, I would agree with much of what Malke says above. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look at them.Malke2010 14:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Ron Paul's mention in lead

Yesterday, Malke 2010 moved the paragraph on Ron Paul from History to the lead, citing a need for "clarity".

In my opinion, Ron Paul is only tangentially involved in the Tea Party movement and then only to its history, unless someone has a source that says the term Tea Party (in its modern context) derives from Rep. Paul's speeches. (Or he attended a TPM rally or mentioned TP in congress, etc.) In addition, by eliminating the second sentence in the History paragraph (But no independent movement...), the sole reason (IMO) for Rep. Paul's inclusion in the first place was also eliminated.

I have just reorganized the paragraphs in the lead section. Without the sentence about Ron Paul in the lead, the two sentences in the paragraph before it more properly belong at the top of the article just after the definition. I will make this change and restore the two-sentence paragraph (from the 19:40, 28 January 2010 version) to History some time within the next few days unless someone objects. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The lead should summarize the article so that the reader can understand the topic by just reading it without having to read the whole article. The Tea Party Movement had a dramatic increase in protesters after the AIG bonus pay was announced. The citation from the New York Times should also be kept in place.Malke2010 15:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the lead should have the following paragraphs: definition/etymology, history, positions for, reactions against. The scope of the article should be what's included under the definition and nothing else except for, possibly, a subsection named Background under History. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Ageed, but it cannot call Fox News a promoter. I have looked, and I cannot find any source claiming that Fox News provided venues, covered expenses, provided free ads, etc.Malke2010 17:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Fox News as promoter in lead/lede

[I'm changing the name of the section because it duplicates another one.]

I'm going to remove the reference to Fox News as a promoter of the protests. After researching this, I discovered that Fox News was the only news show to give coverage of the protests. Network shows like ABC World News with Charles Gibson, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, and CBS News with Katie Couric pointedly did not mention the protests, when they did later on, they presented them in a negative way. Fox News was not a sponsor nor a promoter. On their other shows, their opinion shows, on cable, they talked it up in the same way MSNBC and CNN talked it down. This is POV pushing and does not belong. WP:NPOV. Malke2010 15:15, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

We have multiple reliable source that discuss how fox promoted these events (and really, that fact is undeniable to anyone who has seen their coverage). The sentence in the lede is mentioning that there were counter-protests/backlash against Fox which there were. --Loonymonkey (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2010 (UTC)::

Please cite your "multiple reliable source(s)". We already have one -- Politico's "Fox teas up a tempest". It certainly sounds to me like Politico is accusing Fox of being a promoter (not a sponsor). --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

This is POV pushing. If there were specific protests against Fox news for legitimately covering the events, then that information can be mentioned with appropriate citations later on. It does not belong in the lead since this is not about Fox News. I am removing it because it violates WP:NPOV. Please do not edit war. Use the talk page, and work toward establishing neutral POV.Malke2010 15:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Malke, please cite your sources that Fox News was not a promoter. You can't just eliminate a reference by saying that's POV pushing; that's WP:OR. If we have different, widely-held points of view from reliable sources, we can deal with that in a controversy section, like teabagging. In the meantime, I see nothing dreadfully wrong with removing (temporarily) the five words "including the Fox News Channel" from the lead. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Fox News reported on the tea party protests as did the European news shows and newspapers. The networks, being partisan, as well as their cable channel sisters, did not. You can't say that just because Fox News legitimately covered the events that they are a promoter. Provide a citation or news article or something that shows where Fox News paid for the venue, where they offered free advertising, where they offered support services of any kind. I have looked, and there are none. And please note, this article does not contain a single quote from a tea party organizer. It does not even mention the housewife who started it all. It doesn't talk about the goals or the reasons these people came together. There is no mention of what motivated them like losing their homes, or their jobs, especially when they see AIG executives get bonus pay and then defiantly state their not giving them back.

According to Wiktionary, "promoter" means "someone who advocates or urges on behalf of something". It does not necessarily include any form of remuneration. The Politico article does accuse Fox of advocating support of Tea Parties in this sense and thus fits under the rubric "promoter". As a Wikipedia editor, I don't care if the opinion expressed by Politico is fair or even correct. Politico is a "reliable source" (in the context of the news, this means a mainstream press organization) so it trumps anything we editors have to say about Fox News. If you think (or I think) that Politico is incorrect or unfair, it doesn't matter. All that matters is opinions expressed in other, reliable news sources.

For example, you say above "Fox News reported on the tea party protests as did the European news shows and newspapers. The networks, being partisan, as well as their cable channel sisters, did not." OK, where's your reference? What secondary source claimed that the networks are partisan on this issue? Please provide valid references to these statements otherwise I'll have to conclude that these are just your own, personal opinions, which, as I've said, don't matter to a Wikipedia article.

Even if I were sure that there was "a Mainstream Conspiracy of the Liberal Press Establishment" on this subject, I couldn't do anything about it in Wikipedia. Since this "conspiracy" would control the majority of news outlets, I, as an editor, am honor-bound to report the news in proportion to the percentage of reliable news sources that are expressing a certain viewpoint. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is unfortunately filled with partisan POV and racist tones. In reading this article straight through, one is left with the impression that it's very bad to be part of this movement. You only want to join this movement if you can't talk because you are engaged in oral sex (Anderson Cooper on CNN), or you can't formulate an intelligent thought because you're too busy name calling others. And what is worse, this article gives the impression that the only real reason for the protests is for racist and stupid white people to rant against the first black president.

Most of this article can be reduced to a few paragraphs that concentrate on the protesters themselves and not the news coverage or the back and forth by Bill O'Reilly and Rachel Maddow, two people, among all the others, who have a vested interest in keeping up ratings on their partisan shows.Malke2010 16:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

If you read just a handful of references you might conclude that Fox News is a promoter. If you read several hundred references as in List of Tea Party protests, 2009 I think you'll conclude that Fox News simply made a news judgment that a few of the thousands of Tea Party protests were newsworthy. Other new organizations judged that they were not newsworthy until much later. The vast majority of protests were home grown, often by people who had never previously been involved actively in a political movement. And you'll also find in the references that many of the participants were Democrats or Independents and that many were just as mad at past Republican big spenders as at current Democrat big spenders.

What I'm suggesting is that if you want NPOV and want to avoid UNDUE then read hundreds of references, not just a few. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Fox news hosts like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity actively promoted and helped organize entire protests and even organized bussing to events. There are article after article quoting Fox and their broadcasters encouragement and organizational assistance. That Fox News and its hosts had a large hand in the promotion of the movement is indisputable. Izauze (talk) 23:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The mention of Fox should be paired with promoters, but in a different way as written presently at the Tea Party protests, 2009 page:

"Commentators promoted Tax Day events on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, while the Fox News Channel regularly featured televised programming leading into and promoting various protest activities. Reaction to the tea parties included counter-protests expressing support for the Obama administration, and dismissive or mocking media coverage of both the events and its promoters."

Fox did advertise it's coverage of the tea party protests and this construction allows readers to draw their own conclusions with out explicitly adding the label "promoter".

Thoughts?--Happysomeone (talk) 00:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The media section is really messy right now. Tried to clean it and shape it a bit, but the main problem seems to be that is comprised of two distinctly separate sections - one is general media reaction to the tea party movement, and the other is material concerning the controversey of fox news' role in the movement (and conversely the controversy of other media outlets ignoring it or attacking it as a manufactured movement).

It's such a big part of the tea party narrative and its history that it would seem to deserve its own section and not be lumped into some section full of random media quotes. Izauze (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

It is common knowledge that Fox News helped start and continues to push the "Tea Party" movement. It has, and probably will continue to, make money for Fox News. OK, no big story there. But, reading the history and the beginning of the story Fox News as a major pusher is obviously being understated. Smacks of revisionism. Would someone please fix the glaring error! 70.243.243.233 (talk) 02:27, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

If you see a problem, be bold and do something about it. I happen to prefer the version over at Tea Party protests, 2009. Kind Regards.--Happysomeone (talk) 18:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

History

The history section is completely POV pushing. It begins with Rush Limbaugh. He did not initiate the protest movement. This was a grass roots movement and the history of how it got started belongs here. Whether or not partisan commentators used the protest to increase market share for their programs has nothing to do with what an ordinary citizen started. Commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow flog something until they start to lose viewers/listeners, and then they go on to flog the next thing that is popular at the moment. This section needs to be rewritten with the actual history of the movement from the citizens, not the people making money off it.Malke2010 15:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The History section stops with the origin of the term "Tea Party" in late February. The section should be significantly expanded with the main events/protests of the movement to date; for example, Tax Day, July 4th and the Tea Party Expresses. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 02:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. These are the rallying dates for the movement. People take off work, make up signs, etc. That would really be great if we had that here.Malke2010 02:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. The first official tax protest that was labeled as a "tea party" and started the movement go back as far as 2007 with Ron Paul Supporters in Boston, Massachusetts. (http://www.freedomrally12-16.org/). This movement started then, and continued to grow with Ron Paul supporters throughout 2008. To say that the movement originated in 2009 by Rush Limbaugh is just plain wrong. This looks to me like partisan posturing rather than accurate POV. Yes, it's true that the movement picked up steam after this, both by Rush Limbaugh and by Glenn Beck and his "9/12 Movement", but it is disingenuous to claim that's where the whole thing started. It is more likely that these people co-opted an existing movement in order to further their own agenda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Socratesone (talk • contribs) 01:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Away for a few days and look what happened to the place. Several sections which were once verifiable and presented a full picture with multiple angles of context have now been reduced to a virtual Tweet. It's very sad to see this disruption. Where to start? Well, I suppose starting from where the history section initially did: Why did Mary Rakovich (on Feb. 10) and Keli Carender (on Feb. 16) take the first step here and organize their respective protests? Here's my view: Sidelining the symbology of the so-called "Tea Party" and nationally broadcast advocacy for protest against the current administration's spending programs, such as the so-called "Stimulus" program is a mistake. It's where this all came from, IMHO. A lot these programs were either already passed by the Bush administration (i.e. the bi-partisan $700-plus billion TARP program) or being openly discussed and campaigned on in 2008, but after the election was over political activity appeared to subside. There wasn't a whole lot of protesting going on over the massive commitments of taxpayer money from 2008. That happened in 2009, after the election, and after another massive spending program (i.e. the "Stimulus") was making it's way through US Congress. Then you started to see, hear and read stories (that were amply documented previously) that illustrated a deep philosophical shift. One of the most prominent voices at that time (apart from a number of elected and incumbent congressional Republicans) was Rush Limbaugh. He used his platform on talk radio to dub the program "Porkulus", an apparent portmanteau of "pork" and "stimulus". It is no accident that Carender dubbed her protest a "Porkulus" protest. OK, that's enough for now. But this is the sort of history that really should be included here, not the streamlined version that closely resembles Michelle Malkin's version of events. BTW, Malke2010, that's an interesting name.--Happysomeone (talk) 01:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

It is a Hebrew name. It is the name of a character in a novel I just finished. And 2010 is my deadline for it. It has nothing to do with Michelle Malkin if that was what you meant by interesting name. And if you're taking credit for the content of this article, well as Charlie Wilson once said to a CIA agent, "I wouldn't be too proud of that."Malke2010 02:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

A friendly reminder, WP:AGF does not include making assumptions ad hominem. There is also an old saying about one who cares to "assume" as a general rule. It is kind to neither the inferrer nor the inferred. It was not my intention to link you to Michelle Malkin. May I suggest you productively discuss the merits of my observations, rather than brushing them aside in this way?

Please refrain from personal attacks, even suggested ones. Kind Regards.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Tea bagging controversy section

I noticed in this section an especially POV pushing and offensive sentence: "Continuing with the theme that "Tea Bag Movement" members were ignorant rednecks, Cartoonist Mark Fiore produced a satirical piece for NPR purporting to teach viewers how to speak "Tea Bag," ironically depicting Tea Party members as incapable of political discourse beyond name-calling. He claims to have received death threats because of the piece. "

I think the entire paragraph is inflammatory and could be seen by readers as not only extreme POV pushing, but racist as well, since the majority of the protesters were white. I am deleting it.Malke2010 16:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I would question the relevance of having the "teabagging" section in this article - it was just copied from the article Tea Party protests, 2009. In that article it fits since it deals with a specific protest slogan/tactic, but regarding the broader movement it isn't super important (amusing though it may be.) MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 04:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It should be removed. It isn't relevant.Malke2010 14:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The tea bagging controversy is relevant and will remain. Scribner (talk) 17:45, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

One note on this section: It is too large. We don't need all the references from what the various media said. Scribner (talk) 18:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree it is too large. What about having a paragraph that includes the mailing of tea bags and the double entrendre, and then get rid of the what the various media said? Could write something up and post it here first.Malke2010 19:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This entire article is obviously undergoing a complete rewrite that has completely gone off the rails re: WP:NPOV. Folks, first and foremost, it would really, really be helpful if everyone reviewed the archives so we wouldn't have to go over the same arguments ad infinitum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Happysomeone (talk • contribs) 02:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree it's at least a little too prominent. It has been a pretty minor side note. Don't know where the arguments of it being racist came from (re: Malke2010)Izauze (talk) 04:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppostion - why remove the recent section on oppostion if this article is supposed to remain neurtral. By accepting the text that the movement had detractors, the article becomes more complete. I suggest that links to opposition enahnce the discussion, not deminish it.

(User:Donotcontactme) 18:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality of article

This article reads with a POV slanted to make this movement seem like it is nothing more than a ploy of right-wing commentators like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. This is not true. No where in this article are there quotes from grass-roots organizers, nor is the history of the movement reflective of how things got started with average citizens. I've already removed some of the more overt POV, including the offensive language painting the protesters as rednecks who can do little more than perform oral sex and name call, but the article has a long way to go before it can be said to be neutral. There seems also to be WP:SYN. Obviously, conservative groups infiltrated the movement and held their own protest rallies under the guise of the movement, but actual grass-roots participants complained about them. That should be in the article, as well as quotes and perspective from the real grass-roots organizers. I've placed the neutrality template on the article. Please do not remove it until the problems with the article are resolved.Malke2010

The article is illegible in sections but I'm not seeing any POV violations. Good luck Scribner (talk) 03:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs a much better accounting of the groups involved, grassroots and otherwise. I don't think this is necessarily a POV issue, but it's certainly unclear. I wrote a bit about this problem at Talk:Tea_Party_movement#Genealogy_of_the_movement and I believe we need to add a section. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC).

I agree, we need a section, and we need to include quotes from articles about the individuals involved on the grass-roots level. Right now it's a shouting match between Rush and MoveOn.Org. Nice work on the new section.Malke2010 06:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it doesn't appear to be a shouting match between Rush and MoveOn. Your wild exaggerations hurt your claims of POV. Again, I'm not seeing POV problems in the article. Scribner (talk) 17:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The lead has the sentence "However, with the current GOP support for the cause, it is hard to argue that Tea Party supporters are without representation.[8]". This is a problem in several political articles. Justify opinion just because there's a reference. (similarly, the Talk:Barack Obama page has a discussion whether editors should stick to the facts or add let analysis, more of it positive - there is some support for only having facts) The truth of the matter is that the mainstream GOP does not get involved with the Tea Party. Tancredo and Palin are fighting for coverage here. Not McCain, Pawlenty, Romney, Guiliani, Boehner. JB50000 (talk) 05:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

No offense but it seems pretty clear that Malke2010 is an advocate of the movement and thus not in a position make impartial judgments or edits. Do we have some good impartial editors that could clean up this article and look over Malke2010's edits? Scribner —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreslough (talk • contribs) 04:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I don't necessarily think that Malke2010 can't make valuable contributions (or that s/he hasn't already), but the repeated advocacy seems to call for some additional scrutiny. --Izauze (talk) 19:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Hundreds of readily-available references

I made this comment above but as I read more sections of this talk page, I found that my comment applies to almost all of them so I am repeating it here.

There are literally hundreds of references at List of Tea Party protests, 2009. If you read all of these references - mostly from local news organizations - instead of reading just a handful of references from the more prominent national sites, you may reach different conclusions. In any case I think you'll find it easier to achieve neutrality and avoid giving undue weight.

Some conclusions I draw from these references:

• it is a grassroots movement
• many participants, even many of the organizers, had never previously been involved in such events
• most protests were homegrown
• some of the largest protests were sponsored by organizations such as Freedom Works
• most were publicized through new media such as email, Facebook, Twitter rather than through (e.g.) Fox
• many participants were Democrats or Independents upset with big spending
• while many participants were Republicans, the protests were not pro-Republican
  • some protesters were annoyed when Republicans tried to turn the protests into partisan events
  • there were protests where Republicans were actively booed
• the focus was against bad ideas, rather than for a party
• there were signs complaining about both Republicans and Democrats
• while some people protested Obama by name, the focus was against big spending and big government

Those are from the top of my head. There probably are other conclusions to draw from re-reading all of the refs. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I did not see your earlier post about this. I have been reading so many articles about this in the last several days, I agree with you on all those points. The stories from individuals talking about their financial situations is especially interesting. Some of them are sad, too.Malke2010 18:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Scott Brown victory

I'm thinking that perhaps there should be a section about Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. After that victory, many in the press are reconsidering the Tea Party Movement. E.g.:

• The Big Question: What is the Tea Party movement, and could it change US politics?
• Tea Party movement has no leaders but makes a big impact on U.S. political scene
• Tea Party moves from margins to mainstream in US politics
• Did tea party stir Brown's victory?
• Press Takes a New Look at Tea Parties After Brown Win
  • David Gregory: "That's what's fueling the Tea Party movement."

Sbowers3 (talk) 16:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't agree. Scott Brown has nothing to do with the Tea Party Movement. He has not participated in it, etc. He does not identify with it. He views himself as a 'Scott Brown Republican.' He didn't even know what a Boston Globe reporter meant when she asked him about the tea party movement.Malke2010 17:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Scott Brown disavowed the Tea party movement. When asked about the subject. Scribner (talk) 17:39, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

He didn't disavow it. I've listened to the tape of the interview and when the reporter asked him about the tea party movement, he didn't know what she meant by that phraseology, and so he said he didn't know what she meant but that all kinds of people were supporting him, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, etc. It was actually the Independent vote that help put Brown in office because Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state. In looking over the stats for some of the precincts with the heaviest Democratic registration, Joe Kennedy siphoned off votes from Coakely, and Brown took the Independent votes in those districts. But overall, Brown did get a substantial Democratic vote as well. He did well with Independents, Republicans, and Democrats. So his assertion that all kinds of people are supporting him is true. Also, every time he's been asked if he is a moderate or a conservative or liberal Republican, he will always answer, "I'm a Scott Brown Republican." He's a very independent, go his own way kind of fellow which is most likely why people voted for him.Malke2010 17:50, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, he did disavow it. He stated in response to a tea party question that his campaign was a "big tent" campaign. Scott Brown is about a liberal as Republicans come. Scribner (talk) 17:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The Boston Tea Party (political party) endorsed a different candidate, Joseph L. Kennedy. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC

(ec)Scribner: When Brown referred to his campaign as 'big tent' that's exactly when he was saying that all sorts of people were supporting him. His exact response to the Boston Globe reporter was, "I don't know what you mean by that. . ." The tapes are out there for anyone to listen to.

And MakeBelieveMonster, you are correct. The Boston Tea Party did not endorse Brown. He's too liberal for them.Malke2010 18:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

MakeBelieveMonster, your new section violates WP:TONE. It needs to be written in the form of a paragraph. Scribner (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the new section violates tone. Having it with bullet points helps clarify things.Malke2010 18:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does and it'll get a tagged for violating tone and POV if it's not changed. Let's don't wasted each other's time with petty bickering. Scribner (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree, don't bicker.  :) But the article is a work in progress and MakeBelieveMonster appears to be a newcomer, so let's not bite him/her.WP:BITE. Malke2010 18:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay so WP:TONE does not require prose - please see WP:LIST. However, the new section could certainly use more detail. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 18:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it could be written up in paragraphs with the citations. The cites are very good, BTW. Malke2010 18:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's also not misguide him. The section violates WP:TONE and if he wants it to remain in the article it'll have to be written in the form of a paragraph. There's also a problem with POV in the section but overall it looks okay for now, other than the bullets. I'll revert if this isn't corrected. Scribner (talk) 18:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any POV problem. The sentences are simple and straigtforward. Please don't threaten with reverts, etc. Edit warring is a waste of everybody's time. And this is something that is getting worked out. There's no rush while he writes up paragraphs. This article has sat here for a long time with racist comments, etc. And nobody seemed in a hurry to delete that.Malke2010 18:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC

Multiple tag added. Scribner (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Amen to that.Malke2010 18:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Scribner - WP:TONE says that writing needs to be businesslike, use the third or second person, and use gender-neutral language. It says nothing at all about lists versus prose. However, WP:LIST says "Lists are commonly used in Wikipedia to organize information. Lists may be found within the body of a prose article, or as a stand-alone article." As the section presently has only a short blurb on each group, a list is a logical way to organize it. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 18:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It does read well. It's straight forward fact and well sourced with excellent citations.Malke2010 18:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Scott Brown - edit break

Two points about Scott Brown and the Tea Party Movement:

• the minor point is that Tea Party people were involved in the campaign.
• the major point is that many politicians and pundits are only now giving respect to the movement and thinking that it may have very significant political influence. Its stature has grown as a result of the Scott Brown victory.

Here are some quotes from the refs above:

• the most significant recent development in US politics is the emergence of the Tea Party movement, a populist organisation that contributed to Brown's victory, and which could reshape the country's political landscape at November's mid-term elections here.
• They are defined less by what they are for, than what they oppose: runaway government spending, high taxation, and large deficits, epitomised by Obama's healthcare reform and the $787bn stimulus package in February.
• the Tea Party is "anti-Washington" ... Mr. Gwinn said he had been angry at the direction of the country since the Bush bank bailouts of 2008
• The Tea Party movement ... helped elect a Republican as a senator in Massachusetts.
• It was the first tangible sign a national movement ... was gaining momentum and clout.
• "It's a true grass-roots movement," said Dennis Hale, a political science professor at Boston College.
• "But this is not just about the guy in office -- Bush started the first bailouts -- but the whole congressional structure"
• tea party movement ... is migrating from the margins to the mainstream of US politics.
• What Scott Brown spoke to is whether government is working. ... That's what's fueling the Tea Party movement.
• To hear some leading Democrats talk, Scott Brown’s campaign was fueled by the burgeoning tea party movement.
• countless members of tea party groups from across the Northeast infused Brown’s campaign with energy, cash and boots on the ground
• Interviews with other tea party members revealed a similar scenario of individuals getting involved late in the campaign, and mostly on their own, as opposed to signing on to a larger orchestrated effort.
• The only way for somebody to raise the amount of money he raised was through the tea party movement getting excited around the country.
• Mr. Brown appeared at some of those Tea Party rallies. "It gave people hope that they should take part in the system. And when he showed up at some of those rallies people got the idea that he is our kind of guy."
• Tea Party activists started pouring money and volunteers into the state from across the US.
• As of last night [Brown's victory], the media have finally started to change their tune on the Tea Party movement.

I'm suggesting that Brown's victory is a significant milestone for the movement. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a long walk around the block to get there. Brown doesn't have a tea party agenda. It's like six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. It sounds like WP:SYN. Brown is not a standard bearer of the movement. If he had been leading the charge, then yes, it would be a victory for the tea party movement. I think a victory for the tea party movement would be overturning the stimulus package and rescinding the bonuses paid to the AIG executives. I've heard that one of their slogans is Taxed Enough Already.Malke2010 21:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

And remember, Brown only got national attention around Christmas when a poll showed he had a viable chance to beat Coakley. All of a sudden, his name was all over the news. I don't think the commentators of either stripe knew his name before then. Nobody was looking at that senate race except for the people in Massachusetts. And donors from all over the country sent him money.Malke2010 21:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed text about origins pre-2009

Scribner has removed the following text, explaining, "remove original research, unsupported by cites":

Grassroots anti-tax protesters, generally with Libertarian or Conservative viewpoints, have used the theme of the Boston Tea Party since at least the 1990s in events such as Tax Day protests.

I personally feel that the citations are pretty solid – covering specific protests and the broader trend – but here are four more that cover the pre-2009 activities: [5] [6] [7] [8]

So what do you specifically find objectionable? Is it the term "grassroots"? I agree that word's flimsy and might be replaced with "locally based" or something... but let me know!

MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the problem either. Everything I've read, and there are a lot of articles available, says that this has tapped into the libertarian movement, anti-tax movement that's been around for a while now. I have no problem with it. I agree the citations are good. I also like your new ones. Look up higher on this page, another user has provided a lot of references for use. I have several up there, too. The New Yorker article I put up there is especially good. It covers the grass-roots. And yes, I think the grass roots needs to be there. Keri Carender started off using her blog, and she's not a professional, etc. Malke2010 23:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I specifically added the subsection "Background" to History because it seemed to me that we wanted a place for references that did not mention "Tea Party" per se. This might be a good place for pre-2009 origins but we could go back to Ancient Greece. (I'm sure there were tax protests in Athens circa 500 BCE.) Can anyone think of a reasonable stopping point that we all can agree on?

Also, the History section was originally in date-order but Malke made the last paragraph in Background first, presumably for importance rather than news style. First, the Carender event doesn't belong first because "Porkulus" is defined in the paragraph about Rush Limbaugh on January 27th. Besides, I think the History section should be in date-order. Your views?

While I'm at the Carender event, why is this "the first organized event"? I assume that whoever included it meant "the first organized event in the Tea Party movement". If the references don't mention the TPM, why is this specific event first rather than something pre-2009?

Also, all the paragraphs in Background have at least one inline citation except for the paragraph about Ron Paul. I'm going to delete this paragraph unless someone provides a reference. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:00, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the first citation I have for "Tea Party" protests being done in opposition to taxes or spending is from 1983. Not that the year matters, but we should definitely not claim this started with "Porkulus" or Rick Santelli. So the current History section is factually wrong. I would say our starting point ought to be when people began combining the "Tea Party" theme with anti-tax or anti-spending protests. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The phrase 'porkulus' has been around for a very long time. The edits here make it seem like Rush Limbaugh came up with it and then Keli Carender picked up on that. That seems like WP:SYN to me. And regards moving sections, etc. This article does not have a coherent flow to it. It seems like in many ways it was written in a headlong rush to load up the article and get it published to wikipedia. The article should focus on the grass roots people with only mention of the professional organizations that joined in. The protesters themselves have made statements that they were not happy that these organizations came in, nor did they welcome them. Yet as the article stands now, it seems like they are all one entity. That is what WP:SYN causes.Malke2010 20:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

"The phrase 'porkulus' has been around for a very long time."

Really? Where's the evidence of this? The word "porculus", essentially a piglet, is a somewhat archaic word that, true, has been around for some time. But where's the evidence that links this to the more recent usage, i.e. the so-called "porkulus protest"? The Limbaugh quote is the first verifiable source for this. That's not WP:SYNTH or WP:OR. That's WP:VERIFY. In addition, while it's important to highlight the "grass roots" of this particular movement, it isn't productive to elevate that over the demonstrable influence of corporate-funded lobbyists that are either closely aligned with the Republican Party or are dominated by active party members and former republican politicians.

It's happening, as much as you disagree with it, and the evidence doesn't point to "professional organizations that joined in" - rather, it supports the concept that these organizations were involved right from the start, and spend a considerable amount of time and resources doing so.

Kind Regards.--Happysomeone (talk) 22:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Seehere for verifiable information on the Limbaugh quote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.136.123 (talk) 03:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Movement vs. Protests. Again.

Sections 1 and 2 up above talk about merging Tea Party protests, 2009 with Tea Party movement. There's even a note that says "The move had consensus". Unfortunately, the merge was never performed (or never performed properly). Both of these articles have continued to have changes made up until today.

The articles were split on about January 19th and each has followed essentially its own path ever since although some editors have copied changes to both. There is still a lot of overlapping contents.

(There are also two lists: List of Tea Party protests, 2009 and List of Tea Party protests, 2010. These are simply lists of references and have nothing to do with this discussion.)

The fact that we still have two articles with greatly overlapped contents brings up several questions:

• Do we intend to eliminate one of these two articles and redirect links to whichever one we keep?

No. I do not support elimination of either. There is ample precedent for keeping a series of protests separate and distinct from a political movement. The old "protests" article continually overran its scope and the reasons for the move were well founded, in particular but not limited to WP:SS.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• If so, should the title of the remaining article be "Tea Party protests, 2009", "Tea Party protests" or "Tea Party movement"?

I favor the name "Tea Party protests", without the year, regardless of whether we leave the articles split or eliminate "Movement". --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• If we intend to leave them separate, what rules should we adopt to distinguish what content belongs in which article?

I remain in full agreement with the original aim of the original proposal, suggested by John Broughton:

I think most of the article should move to 2009 Tea Party protests, which should be a daughter article to Tea Party movement, and that the main article should have much less of what is now in this article (focusing on the broader matters of organizations, participants, the upcoming February 2010 convention, etc.) with a section summarizing and linking to the 2009 protests daughter article. Otherwise, some of the information in this article will need to be removed, because the article will get too long. I am suggesting that a separate (daughter) article on just the 2009 protests is merited because they were so unusual and well-covered by the media, and because protests in 2010 are going to be seen as part of the larger movement, not something interesting in and of itself.

A possible example of content that garnered a lot of attention in the '09 protests but may not be relevant to the Tea Party movement article moving forward is the term Teabagging. Just as the film Deep Throat faded from popular memory, so too may this term. But it certainly was relevant to the 2009 protests and generated (and continues to generate, IMHO) frequent mention.

--Happysomeone (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Please address your comments under each of the bullet points above. Please do not implement any merge or elimination until we have arrived at consensus. Thanks. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have reinstated the merge tags in both articles. In my opinion, one reply (by Happysomeone above) is not enough for consensus. It is now Thursday morning (by my clock). Let's give question 1 until Saturday (Feb 9th) for everyone to chirp in before we remove the tags.

Also, I would not perform major edits on either article that presuppose one decision over another. Let's take a long deep breath and decide the direction we want the article(s) to take over the next few months. It may be that the discussion about the different content rules will lead us into a whole new path: perhaps one in which we decide on new title(s) for the article or articles. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if you could address how the move was "not performed properly" before we continue further discussion.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they should be merged at this time. There are too many problems with this article as it is. They need to be addressed first.Malke2010 18:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The split was discussed at Talk:Tea_Party_protests,_2009#Proposed_Move_to_Tea_Party_movement and the top sections on this talk page are about that split, not a merge. This is the first merge proposal. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 18:26, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, it's my understanding that the "move" involved changing the name of the overall article from Tea Party protests, 2009 to Tea Party movement because this is a more common term covering the general ideas. The result of the move should have changed Tea Party protests, 2009 to an event article relating to the overall Tea Party movement article. To whomever started the merge proposal, could you list why the articles would need to be merged? Sometimes it takes awhile to separate out the info from recently moved articles that are closely related. Publicus 18:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

A move requires that we copy all text from the old name to the new name (Protests to Movement in this case), delete all text under the old name and replace it by a redirect. We now have three articles to contend with: Tea Party protests, 2009, Tea Party movement and List of Tea Party protests, 2009/List of Tea Party protests, 2010. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I see what the problem is, editors haven't finished moving the two articles around--there's a lot of dupe stuff on both. I'll start moving some items around to clear up the confusion. Publicus 18:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The duplication seems to be the "History" and "Teabagging" sections. The "Teabagging" bit might not be as relevant to the movement as a whole, since it deals with a specific protest slogan/tactic. As for the "History" sections, it will be tricky to sort out what matters for the movement and what matters for the protests. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I did some major moving around and reorgs, I think I got most of the dupes deleted or items placed properly. Check it out and see if this solves the basic problems, altho I'm sure it will still need some work. Publicus 19:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Please, no more 'humor' sections, and no more disgusting teabagging Janeane Garfolo/Anderson Cooper comments. And I seriously question moving anything without first looking at the mess over on the Tea Party 2009 page. Editors here were just beginning to make progress and I don't agree with bringing all that stuff over here. I'm thinking of reverting this. There's no consensus for this move.Malke2010 19:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It's all gone from the Protests page, the sections were moved to this page. As long as the items are appropriate to responses to the movement, they should probably be included, altho in just glancing at them that section could be shortened with the more relevant comments.Publicus 19:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

What rules should we adopt to distinguish what content belongs in which article?

Asked by RoyGoldsmith above, that is the real question. I think there is still consensus to split into two (perhaps more later) articles. I see that editors are already responding to RoyGoldsmith's questions by better splitting the two articles. It may take some time but there is little doubt that it will happen. Therefore, I am removing the Merge suggestion. Discussion about how to refine the split might continue in this section (which I created partly as an edit break). Sbowers3 (talk) 19:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted the merge tags deletion. I don't think we have reached consensus; see above. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think first, we should revert any additional material brought over by Publicus. He has no consent for this move and this article was just beginning to have some clarity with the removal of the frat house joke section. He's now bloated the article with the senseless 'humor section' which should be eliminated. This is a movement of working people who are fed up with big government. It doesn't have anything to do with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper. The media section can go too, and the article will read much better.Malke2010 19:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, what edits are you referring too? The "humor" section has been pretty cut down from previous. I think it should be in the article a little, but not to the extent it used to be. Just because you find them personally offensive isn't really a reason to delete them. Those responses are a part of the coverage of the overall Tea party movement. Publicus 23:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

also, the sections only need a paragraph or two covering the relevant news coverage. The article is not a daily diary of what the media said and did. It's enough to say that there was coverage and that it fell along partisan lines. Maddow versus Hannity. Nothing new past that. Also, the Astroturfing section. The definition needs to be in the lead sentence with a only a paragraph about what it is and why it was applied to the movement. Then, it should have reaction by people in the movement. That will be plenty. If we can really get this article in hand, it might get at least peer review, maybe even GA status.Malke2010 19:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The movement article is the main article. The 2009 protests article is a daughter article (there may be more; for example, depending on how the February 2010 convention goes, in terms of news coverage, that might merit a separate article, which would be a daughter article). See WP:SS for further details on daughter articles and the summary paragraphs to them, in main articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see any consensus here for these wholesale, unsupported edits based on apparent personal preference. These relevant, well sourced passages should remain. Removing content in this fashion is extremely disruptive. It's also very difficult to support edits that have no basis in supporting text or citation. Claiming that "This is a movement of working people who are fed up with big government," is not WP:NPOV when there is clear, documented evidence that supports a different side to that view. Please try to offer supportable edits, if any.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone undid my edits to scale this back for WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. He did not use the talk page before doing this nor did he offer an explanation in the edit summary. The sections I revised were Astroturfing and Humor. The reverts appear to be edit warring. It's plain for anybody to see that all the information there is not necessary. People like Jon Stewart and Anderson Cooper and O'Reilly's Factor talking points are all brands that sell ads on television. This is Wikipedia. Not WikiAdAgency. Also, it seems this is POV pushing by Happysomeone since I did my revisions left in all the liberal Think Progress, etc stuff.Malke2010 21:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition, there was no consensus to move material from the Tea Party Protests to this page. And Happysomeone, you appear to be at 3RR right now. Please do not start an edit war here.Malke2010 21:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there was consensus to create a larger Tea Party movement article which I would think would cover responses to the movement. The Tea Party protests, 2009 article covers the specific protests of last year. If we look at the movement article as the main one, then it would have things like; history, background, rationale, origins of, and responses to the movement. Does this make sense? Publicus 23:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I've clearly explained my reasoning here and I am not trying to engage in an edit war. This was the first revert I've taken on an edit from your hand. I've repeatedly asked you to give us supportable evidence so we can get behind your edits. You haven't done that. If I may request a second time, please assume good faith. It is not productive to accuse another editor of edit warring. Your viewpoint on WP:UNDUE seems to be closer to WP:NOTHING, based on your actions. It would be better if you continued this per WP:BRD, rather than ringing the alarm bell. My two cents.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

And now WP:SYNTH is the third justification given for this unsupported edit. How? Where? We seem to have several disagreements here.--Happysomeone (talk) 22:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It would help if you would discuss first. I made good faith edits to make this article readable and manageable. You did not use the talk page. Please do so from now on. Thanks.Malke2010 22:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I moved most of the old teabagging material over that article under the political term section, the wikilink here seems to cover enough of the issue. How's this work for you Malke2010? Publicus 23:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. Much better. Let it have it's own page. Now the media thing is way overdone. I don't think the article, which will never pass GA review with it in place, should be here giving a back and forth between Rachel Maddow and O'Reilly's talking points. It's an encyclopedia. Readers aren't going to know what this and frankly, they'll lose interest. I think we should look at some of these articles and use quotes from real people.Malke2010 02:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The teabagging mention should at least include the "why" the appellation is thought to have emerged in the article.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I had that originally. What happened to it?Malke2010 02:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(Outdent) I intended this section to be a discussion about what general rules we should use in differentiating the content of each article, assuming that it was decided to leave them split. (I did not intend it to be an invitation for more edits on the articles themselves.) For example, someone could say "I think that the 'Movement' article should have it's History section pared way down (or eliminated) because the 'Protests' acticle should cover it" and then wait for other editors to reply. (This is only an example; I don't necessarily believe Movement's History should be removed.)

In my opinion, the most basic question is: What makes any Tea Party content issue-oriented, rather than relating to protests? Or maybe issue-oriented is not a good way to describe the contents of the "Tea Party movement" article: One could argue that each Tea Party event (or series of events) can have its own issues and/or agenda. What does "movement" and "protest" (as terms) mean to the modern Tea Party?

A sub-question might be: How far do we go back in time for either article? To the first mention of "Tea Party" in the modern context (by Santelli?)? This would eliminate the "Background" subsections from both articles. On the other hand, if we don't use the first mention, any content about virtually any taxation protest in US history could be included. Where should we stop?

Nevertheless, we should have a defined rule or procedure to decide what goes in each article, rather than each editor inserting what he thinks is acceptable and leaving it for other editors to revert them. Most of the edits I've made during the last few days have been reverted, possibly through a series of other edits. If we don't adopt some rules then changing the articles is only a invitation to edit wars. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Good call, RoyGoldsmith. I'll hold off on any more edits. I was trying to finish the original move job, which looked unfinished because of all the dupe info on both the main articles. Sorry if those edits were confusing or unhelpful. Publicus 16:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Roy. We need rules:

the first rule should be: This is not a political forum, WP:SOAP, so no POV pushing. Keep WP:NPOV

the second rule should be consensus.

the third rule should be consensus.Malke2010 18:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

As long as everyone is respectful and sticks to the WP:FIVE, I've got no problem. This is a collaborative project.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

A good way to work together is to have a common goal. Since it is an encyclopedia, we could work toward GA status and keep the guidelines in mind, [9], when deciding on what to keep and what to eliminate. What would a reviewer think of each section? The arrangement of the article? etc. Malke2010 19:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to working toward the best articles we can write, be it GA, FA or stub, start, C, B or A class. Bear in mind 'tho that we'll be lucky to attract 50% of the editors working on TP articles to this discussion and the other 50% of edits, even if we assume good faith, will clutter up our work with static. We do what we can. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

MERGE DISCUSSION

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I have changed the subsection levels below so that everything that applies to the Merge Discussion is all in one top-level section. Anything that you think is significant to the Merge Discussions above should be moved to one of the subsections below. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Back to the Beginning

These are the original three questions I asked up above:

• Do we intend to eliminate one of these two articles and redirect links to whichever one we keep?

No. I do not support elimination of either. There is ample precedent for keeping a series of protests separate and distinct from a political movement. The old "protests" article continually overran its scope and the reasons for the move were well founded, in particular but not limited to WP:SS.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Happysome1 - could you please link to some of these precedents you refer to for possible review/analysis and discussion and debate regarding how this current movement might relate or not relate?

I ask because the most accessible reference I tend to conjure up is the vietnam era american anti-war movement. Which seems to work because it is tied to a particular geographical and historical context in the same way as The Tea Party Movement is. And for that all we seem to have is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War -- which includes an overview of the timeline and all the protests and other events that contributed to the growth of the movement, and then there is also information regarding how those protests coalesced into a more organized formal movement over time.

As important as this era is, it does not seem to require (from what I see) even any separate "list of early protests" articles, much less a more comprehensive separate article exploring all the various aspects of the protests themselves. At most you might see links to individual protests that carry such a great historic weight that one might desire to see them explored in more depth as events in and of themselves (like the Kent State shootings). I really believe that likewise, as the tea party movement continues to progress, it will seem more and more ridiculous and redundant to be maintaining a separate article about the series of protests that occurred in 2009 which fueled what has now become a movement. If we lack the perspective to realize this now, we certainly will realize it within the next few years. -Izauze (talk) 14:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, Happysome1: I feel your statement requires clarification: "There is ample precedent for keeping a series of protests separate and distinct from a political movement."

What is this ample precedent? The most popular corollary article seems to be something like the vietnam antiwar movement. But using THAT as a precedent seems to clearly supportive of there being ONE article that accounts for all the stages this movement has gone through. -- Izauze (talk) 10:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• If so, should the title of the remaining article be "Tea Party protests, 2009", "Tea Party protests" or "Tea Party movement"?

I favor the name "Tea Party protests", without the year, regardless of whether we leave the articles split or eliminate "Movement". --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• If we intend to leave them separate, what rules should we adopt to distinguish what content belongs in which article?

I remain in full agreement with the original aim of the original proposal, suggested by John Broughton:

I think most of the article should move to 2009 Tea Party protests, which should be a daughter article to Tea Party movement, and that the main article should have much less of what is now in this article (focusing on the broader matters of organizations, participants, the upcoming February 2010 convention, etc.) with a section summarizing and linking to the 2009 protests daughter article. Otherwise, some of the information in this article will need to be removed, because the article will get too long. I am suggesting that a separate (daughter) article on just the 2009 protests is merited because they were so unusual and well-covered by the media, and because protests in 2010 are going to be seen as part of the larger movement, not something interesting in and of itself.

A possible example of content that garnered a lot of attention in the '09 protests but may not be relevant to the Tea Party movement article moving forward is the term Teabagging. Just as the film Deep Throat faded from popular memory, so too may this term. But it certainly was relevant to the 2009 protests and generated (and continues to generate, IMHO) frequent mention.

--Happysomeone (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Some Strawman Proposals

Please note that we have not agreed as yet whether the articles remain split or are merged.

To start us off, I will propose that the rule that distingushes Movement content from Protests content is that Movement content must be issue-oriented. This would mean that everything except a much-reduced lead and a section on the TP movement's Positions_and_goals would be eliminated from Movement and, if necessary, transferred to Protests.

Please post your comments to this proposal under here.

(Like this. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

• Oppose. Looking at other movements you can see that there are other topics that mater in a movement, such as activities, participant groups, historical accomplishments. This scope is overly limited. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 13:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Direct your attention to other movements and click on the Anti-war movement article. From there, you'll see how the hierarchy of protest movement articles is currently handled using a WP:SS structure. For instance, under Anti-war is a sub-article (or "daughter" article) called Opposition to the Iraq War, which is then further augmented by Protests against the Iraq War, and then finally you start reaching the end of the chain at events like the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest, the largest mass anti-war protest in recorded history. The same template, WP:SPLITTING, should be used here. Perhaps this is where a lot of confusion on this proposed merge is coming from, because the nomenclature used at the time was a proposed WP:MOVE. On reflection, that was a mistake, as clearly a WP:SPLIT was intended. Oppose. Rules that require only "issue-oriented" content. That doesn't seem consistent with any other other movements articles on Wikipedia, as editor MakeBelieveMonster observes.--Happysomeone (talk) 23:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone, I take it that you Support the idea of leaving the articles split but Oppose the notion of differentiating their content by making Movement solely about "the Tea Party issues". What are your rule(s) for distingushing Movement content from Protests content? Please do not indent your alternative here but place it down below between the paragraphs that start with "These are, of course, only straw man proposals..." and "Also, please, when you're ready, register your opinions...". Thanks. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

As an alternative, I will also propose that the two articles be merged. (Name to be decided later.) This is because (in someone's opinion) there is no underlying issue or cause other than a vague sense of tax revolt that unites all TP protests. Every event (or series of events) to which someone applies the name "Tea Party" has its own raison d'etre and the people who go to such an event are, by and large, not interested in discussing political philosophy. Any content relating to TP positions and goals can be inserted in a new section in the Tax revolt article.

Please post your comments to this proposal under here.

(Like this. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

• Support. The distinction between the Protests and the Movement is fuzzy at this point because the 2009 protests are the only prominent thing the movement has done. I executed the original split on the article, but at the time we did not know there was a broader article on anti-tax activity. I think the tea party protests are a type of tax revolt, so that is a better point of historical context. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 13:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• On second thought, let's say Neutral. I still think it's fairly stupid to keep the articles separated when there's only one daughter article. But ultimately, we should be expanding this to more daughter articles. See my new section below. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 19:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. This movement represents a revolt. It's a democracy in action. The 2009 protests should be their own article for now. Later, they will be seen as the initiating event in a long term movement that may someday evolve into a true third party in the U.S. I think we should look at that as a viable possible outcome and let the two articles stand on their own. I will go and give my opinions on the three questions as you asked.Malke2010 18:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Malke, shouldn't your comment be here instead of down below? If not, I'm sorry and please move it again. But I don't understand your reply. On the one hand you say "I agree with MakeBelieveMonster that this movement..." but, on the other hand you say "I think we should look at that as a viable possible outcome and let the two articles stand on their own".

Do you wish to support the merging of the two articles (in which case my movement of your comment is correct) or do you wish that they remain split (in which case you should change my Support tag on your comment to Oppose)? If you do oppose the merging, what explicit rule(s) (not just "a viable possible outcome") would you use to distinguish between Movement content and Protests content? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 21:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Again, I'll simply repeat my objection from above in the prior series of questions. There is ample precedent for keeping a series of protests separate and distinct from a political movement. The old "protests" article continually overran its scope and the reasons for the move were well founded, in particular but not limited to WP:SS.--Happysomeone (talk) 23:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. I don't see anything beneficial to be gained from a 2nd article that couldn't be neatly and appropriately contained in this one. I think even if both articles were formatted correctly and served distinctly separate areas, having two articles for what is such a centralized phenomenon is just confusing for most. Izauze (talk) 04:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

These are, of course, only straw man proposals and I would be amazed if any one survived the comments phase. They are only to get us started and are intentionally controversial. (If anyone else has any other starting proposals, feel free to post them here.)

Also, please, when you're ready, register your opinions in the "three questions" at the beginning of this section, as did Happysomeone. We are going to use your comments to these questions to determine (a) if the two articles should be merged or (b) when the merge tags in the articles should be removed. I have not registered my own opinion because I'm interested in the "What distingushes Movement from Protests" discussions and think they may impact my decision on whether to merge the two articles. Thanks again. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello Roy, suggest starting a new section for us to answer your questions. The length of this thread is difficult to navigate. And it might be better if we keep our answers as short as possible. Thanks.Malke2010 18:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 21:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This thread is too much to navigate. Please let's go down a way.Malke2010 23:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Starting an entirely new thread is duplicative and confusing. Too many chefs spoil the broth. Let's just keep on with what we've got, one at a time, from RoyGoldsmith for the time being and give time to other editors to respond, instead of introducing more elements here.--Happysomeone (talk) 23:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's much easier to read if everybody just gives a simple answer. The longer discussion can continue up here. No worries.Malke2010 23:34, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Malke, we need sometimes long discussions in order for everyone to express their point of view. And there is nothing wrong with inserting paragraph in the body of the discussion, so long as you sign them and it's not disruptive. This is not a linear discussion. If you want, you can ask for a History diff between your last edit and now. In that way you'll see the changes since your last visit.

By the way, you have not, as yet, expressed how you wish to vote and/or the rules you think necessary. See the indented paragraphs up above starting with "Support (I think. -Roy). I agree with MakeBelieveMonster..." --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. I'll suck it up & give my 2 cents. But we should give more time for other editors to give their opinions.--Happysomeone (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have examined the history of Tea Party movement and Tea Party protests, 2009. The only significant editors I see in the last week are: Malke, Happysomeone, MakeBelieveMonster, Izauze, RoyGoldsmith and Publicus and TeaParty1. I will invite Publicus and TeaParty1 to join us here on their user talk pages. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

RoyGoldsmith's got a good idea here. I think other editors will come around. Also, there's no immediate rush to do it today. Be happier, Happysomeone. Malke2010 23:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the change in tone, Malke2010.--Happysomeone (talk) 18:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Support Keeping the Articles Separate. Please post here

Support Keeping Articles Separate

• I support keeping the articles separate. The 2009 protests might well become a watershed moment in U.S. politics.Malke2010 23:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• I support this as well.--Happysomeone (talk) 23:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• I support retaining the two articles. In the emergent order of American political history, it really does seem that there were, initially a few, and later a series, of "tea party protests" that occurred in 2009. As the year progressed, this gradually modified from "protests" (generally labeled such by the media accounts) and began, by very late in the year, to be referred to by media commentators and in media accounts as the "tea party movement". Myriad sources support this distinction. And it is a useful distinction. I think the two articles should be retained for now, where they will evolve in the standard Wikipedia way, and only later will we be able to see how much of the 2009 protests were really crystallized into the later tea party movement. N2e (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• I support per N2e's reasoning. Sbowers3 (talk) 18:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Conflation would make the article either too big or too shallow.Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 16:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Rule(s) that Distinguish Movement Content from Protests Content. Please post here

If we want to keep the articles separate, we've got to specify a rule or procedure for differentiating the content of the two articles. If we don't have an explicit content guideline for each, we'll wind up back with the same stuff in both articles. Which maybe a good thing; see N2e's comment above.

• I am very opposed to instilling "rules" for content allocation and disagree with the "got to" assumption. Said rules would be an intrinsictly complicating process which would throw a monkey wrench into natural organic article development for both articles. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Rules

Originally I specified that Movement content must be issue-oriented and that this would mean that everything except a much-reduced lead and a section on the TP movement's Positions and goals would be eliminated from Movement and, if necessary, transferred to Protests. If this scheme (which is only a straw man) is not what you want then please post below what you do want. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I really think that maintaining two separate articles about the same phenomenon just because it has morphed from one stage into another is both redundant and confusing. If there was one specific event that spurned the movement, it would make sense to maintain a separate page for that event (as it the case for the boston tea party itself). But a series of connected events that grew in following isn't separate from the movement - is IS the movement - at least a part of it.

Therefore, IF they were to be separate, it would only make sense to have the Tea Party Movement function as the main article (which would include, among many other things, coverage of the movement's history: i.e. the protests themselves). And then I guess if people wanted to know more specifics about that stage they could maybe click on this secondary article that might detail more specific info about what cities they happened in, who spoke, attendance, coverage etc.

But personally I believe that this phenomenon is centralized enough that such separation and duplication is unjustified and unnecessary

Izauze (talk) 10:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The protests in 2009 seemed to have arisen so rapidly and in large numbers as a result of what the protesters perceived to be the pork added by Congress in the stimulus package. The increased foreclosures despite the banks getting bailed out, and the AIG bonus pay. Also, I've been reading where protesters were upset about the credit card laws that were passed in the fall of 2008 but would not take effect until Feb 2010, giving the credit card companies plenty of time to take advantage of their customers. I think these are the issues that should be focused on and not the media's response. The media is just selling a brand and taking advantage of the interest by viewers. The media is nothing more than a footnote to all of this, and including them in such a lengthy way is WP:UNDUE and obscures the underlying events.Malke2010 20:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe this section is for proposals about how the material is to be split amongst the two articles, if at all - not about individual edits within this article. Though I disagree with your view of the media topic, I'll save that for another section. --Izauze (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Izauze, I believe this section is for exactly the comments I made. Thanks for asking.Malke2010 04:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

As long as there is a reference at each of the two articles to the other, it serves a good purpose to have both in existence. While the protests were the start, a movement is developing. Several organizations are seeking agreement from the broader Tea Party community to become the central "place" for all to look. Others think a movement is driven by ideas of the repeal of legislation needed to get the federal government back to Constitutional limits, and the emphasis of individual rights as the moral principle by which to evaluate all legislation, past, present and future. The movement could develp along either lines. Only time will tell. So, having both articles give a place for future developments, as well as retaining the origins, as people will come to Wikipedia to look them up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.134.208.219 (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose Keeping Articles Separate. Post here.

Oppose Keeping Articles Separate

(Copied from comments above. Would like to move rather than copy but I think I should not move other persons' comments. Perhaps they will delete their comments from above now that comments have been copied to here. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:58, 9 February 2010 (UTC))

Well, I really think that maintaining two separate articles about the same phenomenon just because it has morphed from one stage into another is both redundant and confusing. If there was one specific event that spurned the movement, it would make sense to maintain a separate page for that event (as it the case for the boston tea party itself). But a series of connected events that grew in following isn't separate from the movement - is IS the movement - at least a part of it.

Therefore, IF they were to be separate, it would only make sense to have the Tea Party Movement function as the main article (which would include, among many other things, coverage of the movement's history: i.e. the protests themselves). And then I guess if people wanted to know more specifics about that stage they could maybe click on this secondary article that might detail more specific info about what cities they happened in, who spoke, attendance, coverage etc.

But personally I believe that this phenomenon is centralized enough that such separation and duplication is unjustified and unnecessary Izauze (talk) 10:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The protests in 2009 seemed to have arisen so rapidly and in large numbers as a result of what the protesters perceived to be the pork added by Congress in the stimulus package. The increased foreclosures despite the banks getting bailed out, and the AIG bonus pay. Also, I've been reading where protesters were upset about the credit card laws that were passed in the fall of 2008 but would not take effect until Feb 2010, giving the credit card companies plenty of time to take advantage of their customers. I think these are the issues that should be focused on and not the media's response. The media is just selling a brand and taking advantage of the interest by viewers. The media is nothing more than a footnote to all of this, and including them in such a lengthy way is WP:UNDUE and obscures the underlying events.Malke2010 20:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe this section is for proposals about how the material is to be split amongst the two articles, if at all - not about individual edits within this article. Though I disagree with your view of the media topic, I'll save that for another section. --Izauze (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe this section is exactly where my comments belong. If you don't like them, don't read them.Malke2010 18:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Really>? "Don't read them" ?? That's what you find to be the appropriate response to my straighforward concern? If I was wrong or misread your comments in some way, I certainly apologize, but there is no reason to employ a tone like that in a forum like this. We are all just amateur editors trying to make a good article based on reason rather than emotional or personal viewpoint. For me, this is just another example of your struggle to avoid approaching this forum in a neutral manner. - Izauze (talk) 04:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I oppose keeping them separate because eventually the 2009 protests will fade in importance and will need to be merged into the main article anyway. Do we have separate articles for every year's protests? That seems silly to me. 68.101.143.168 (talk) 15:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Summary of Positions as of Monday, February 8, 2010

First, this discussion does not have to be linear. Nor should it be. Please make your comments under the appropriate headings below.

I have listed the four general plans for proceeding with the Tea Party articles. Below each plan I have tried to put the editors who agree with each position (so far as I could tell), the dates of that agreement and my signature. If I’ve gotten anything wrong, please correct me by striking out my bullet point (like this) and adding your own under some other heading. Your own could be simply an asterisk followed by 4 tildes (*~~~~).

If none of the plans listed below roughly describes your position, please write down a brief description of your plan below the four headings and sign it. Do not indent these new plan descriptions.

The following section should contain only bullet points with no indentation, brief comments (if necessary) and signature-dates (~~~~).

• Like this.

Anything else that does not relate directly to your position, please enter beneath this section.

Separate Articles: Movement Issue-Oriented, Everything Else Belongs in Protests

• Happysomeone, as of Feb 5th. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))

Merge Articles

• MakeBelieveMonster, as of Feb 5. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• Malke, as of Feb 5th at 18:13. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• Izauze, as of Feb 6th and Feb 8th. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• 68.101.143.168, as of Feb 17th. Izauze (talk) 19:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Separate Articles: No Rules

• Malke, as of Feb 5th at 23:25. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• Happysomeone, as of Feb 5 at 23:33. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• N2e, as of Feb 6. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• Sbowers3, as of Feb 6. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
  • Please see my comments below (Bring up to date). Sbowers3 (talk) 14:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Mr.grantevans2, as of Feb 11. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:06, 12 February 2010 (UTC))

Neutral

• MakeBelieveMonster, as of Feb 6th. (Added by RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC))
• RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

(Any new plan descriptions should be outdented fully just below here and signed like this.) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Vote?

Are we ready to proceed to a straw poll vote or would you like more time to discuss? The score above by my count is 2 people in favor of merging the articles, 4 5 people in favor of leaving them separate and 2 people neutral. Would anyone like to change or refine their position? If you do, please strike out your bullet point above and move it under some other heading.

This stage will only decide whether we go with Merge the Articles or Keep Them Separate. If we expect to accomplish anything, we must limit ourselves to the minimum required to resolve this discussion. If we do decide to keep them separate, we still have to determine what rules (if any) distingushes them from each other. Also remember that, here in Wikipedia-land, we are guided by consensus, not straight up-or-down votes. You can always disagree with the proposed consenus, if you feel strongly enough about it. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 19:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

No one has really responded to them or addressed them, but I have made my points in support of the merge. And since the consensus seems to be stacked against me regardless here, can I at least say that I hope that the decision based on our current understanding of the movement is not necessarily binding in the long term? Because I REALLY believe that once we get more perspective on this young evolving movement that we will see that two articles ARE just redundant and confusing - and when that DOES happen, I don't want the articles to be bound from evolving in that direction because of some vote some random guys took in the movement's infancy. (after all, if the entire vietnam antiwar movement can be accounted for in one article surely the tea party can find a way)

-- Izauze (talk) 10:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Izauze, go and look at the Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which by the way is hardly an ideal model of what we're going for here (see the orphan tag?). In it, you'll find that "the entire vietnam antiwar movement" is not accounted for in the article. In fact, it has a few daughter articles, notably the Kent State shootings and the Fulbright Hearing. It's my view, per WP:SS, that this is the better way to go.Opposition to the 2001 Afghanistan War or Opposition to the Iraq War seems to me the better template.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I did look at Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War -- that's the article I quoted to you elsewhere on this page. And Yes, I know there is a separate page for a specific event like The Kent State Shootings -- I also quoted that to you elsewhere in here - as it shows daughter articles are appropriate for specific events, but that when they describe an entire phase within the movement as a whole, they lack purpose and risk redundancy. I have no objection to providing a list of all individual tea party protests -- however, my concern is that by trying to limit this daughter article to describing the early stage of the movement, it becomes duplicative. The MOVEMENT article should be the one that describes the early stage of the movement. Any "Protests" article should not be limited to one particular year, and should probably be little more than a list, as you see in Protests_against_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present). --Izauze (talk) 23:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:Consensus can change. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Bring up to date

First, I applaud RoyGoldsmith's attempt to organize some rules as to what material goes into which article. I wish I could offer some specific rules but I don't have any good ideas along those lines.

Second, in re-reading the article in the current form, it seems to me to be structured fairly well as is. We may not have identified the rules but nonetheless we seem to have put appropriate stuff into this article.

I assume you mean the Tea Party movement article, not Tea Party protests, 2009. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Correct. I should have been more precise since this merge discussion is about two separate articles. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Third, and this is the main point I want to make just now, much of the material is derived from old references, many from April 2009 or earlier. And that tends to give undue weight to perspectives that probably have changed during the last year. If we were to write this article from scratch, I think we would end up with a somewhat different article. For instance, the section on Astroturfing should give much more weight to the predominant view that these are grassroot organizations and less weight to the minority view that they are astroturfing. In earlier months there were many sources suggesting astroturfing but in recent months I'm not sure I have seen a single suggestion that these are astroturf.

My recommendations are to bring most of the sections more up to date:

• Expand the Positions and Goals section.
• Shorten "The protests" into summary form, but add more info from later events. This means that Tea Party protests, 2009 should be brought more up to date so that the section in this article would be a summary of the other article.
• Expand "Composition of the movement".
• Greatly reduce the Responses section. The article should be mostly about the movement and less so about the reaction to it. But, to the extent that reactions have shifted over time, that might be worth mentioning.
• Greatly reduce the Astroturfing section.

Sbowers3 (talk) 13:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Sbowers has done an excellent job in translating what I meant by "issue-oriented" to the context of the current articles. If we decide to put more of History in the "Protests" article, what would everybody think of renaming the "Tea Party protests, 2009" article to simply "Tea Party protests" (without the year)? We already have List of Tea Party protests, 2009 and List of Tea Party protests, 2010 separated by year. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree it's good to finally have this discussion. However, I would like to sound a note of caution here on concerns that seem related to WP:RECENT. An attempt was made to address this by making Tea Party Protests, 2009 time specific and WP:SPLITTING off the article because 1) there was a unique set of circumstances that formed and shaped events surrounding the Tea Party protests in 2009 and 2) there was a demand for an article that encapsulated the movement more broadly. Now, I understand the need for uniformity and proposing a shift from a date-specific article to a more general "Tea Party protests" (without the year) article, but not at the expense of discarding completely relevant and well-sourced content. For example, Sbowers3 most recent proposal to begin removing or greatly reducing content from the Astroturfing section and the Responses section. First, there is no WP:DEADLINE. Second, before you start removing the Astroturf section, I'd like to you to demonstrate that the majority view is "these are grassroot organizations" and the minority view "that they are astroturfing." It's simply POV that "In earlier months there were many sources suggesting astroturfing but in recent months I'm not sure I have seen a single suggestion that these are astroturf." The current article has at least two sources that suggest astroturfing in the last two months, never mind all of the hand-wringing by Odom and other Tea Party affiliates over the Tea Party Convention and Sarah Palin. My 2 cents.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure that Sbowers meant "Greatly reduce the Astroturfing section by moving the bulk of the contents to a 'sub-'article, like 'Astroturfing controversy about the Tea Party movement'". The same is true for the Responses section. I personally do not support any deletions, except those that fail to meet the Wikipedia content policies. I do believe that Astroturfing is more of a Movement sub-topic than a Protests sub-topic, although the point is certainly arguable. In my opinion, however, we should not place any topic, with few exceptions (like summarization), in both articles. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:50, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like those exceptions to follow the format that conforms to other movements, as I've described above.--Happysomeone (talk) 20:09, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I am quite supportive of each of the bullet points made by Sbowers3 at 13:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC), above. This has been a fairly complicated discussion section, and I also thank Sbowers and RoyGoldsmith for putting in the effort to help synthesize potential consensus, while soliciting input and allowing sufficient time to fully discuss the issues. In my view, once we get the Merge/NoMerge decision made, it will be time to focus on the hard (and evolutionary) editing work necessary to further cleanup the article in the way Sbowers3 proposes, which of course assumes we take the time to determine consensus on these things as well. N2e (talk) 19:49, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

N2e, Malke, Happysomeone, Sbowers and Mr.grantevans: You have all expressed a desire to keep the articles separate. Part of your reasoning is that some of the protest events have special relevance. As Happysomeone expressed it, "there was a unique set of circumstances that formed and shaped events surrounding the Tea Party protests in 2009". Could someone define what is that "unique set of circumstances"? What makes the news reports of the April 15th/Tax Day protests specially relevant but the other news reports of (say) the August 22 Anti-Obamacare protests significantly less so? How about the August 2th protests in Columbus? What reliable sources do you cite for your position?

If all protests are relevent to some extent, wouldn't it be better to treat them individually; for example "April 15th, 2009 Tea Party protest"? This would bring us more into line with Wikipedia's policy for naming articles:

"Use the singular form: Article titles are generally singular in form, e.g. Horse not Horses. Exceptions include nouns that are always in a plural form in English (e.g. scissors or trousers) and the names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages)."

If some are special in some way, wouldn't it be better to include that specialty in the title: for example, Tea Party protests organized by whoever and so on.

(As a side issue, the same policy enjoins us to use lower case:

"Use lower case, except for proper names: The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized; subsequent words in a title are not, unless they are part of a proper name, and so would be capitalized in running text; when this is done, the title will be simple to link to in other articles."

"Boston Tea Party" is a proper name; "Tea Party" alone is not (I think). The article titles should be "Tea party movement", "Tea party protest", etc. Of course, when the movement becomes an actual political party, we'll use "Tea Party Party".) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know where to put comments anymore, so I'm sticking this here. 1) Agree all protest events are grassroots. 2) I still think the articles should stay separate. 3) What's the rush to merge, anyway? If in a year things look like the 2009 protests are nothing but a small event in a larger universe, we can revisit it. All this back and forth seems to be taking away from the editing. 4) And I agree with RoyGoldsmith that we need some rules about what to include so as to avoid any edit wars. 5) And Happysomeone makes a good point about the identity of some of these groups. Having said that, while they might be providing money, the protesters are real, they are sincere, and after reading the New Yorker article, I think these professional groups are marginal, as are the media types, ie, they're in it for something other than the needs of the protesters themselves.Malke2010 04:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Malke, you have brought up some excellent points but you need to cite reliable sources for each of them. It doesn't matter what any of us think, we are simply editors of other people's facts, analyses and opinions. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I've already provided citations in the earlier threads. And I believe Sbowers did as well. I'll round them up and post them here later.Malke2010 18:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus?

I think we are ready to vote on the first phase of consensus: whether to merge the two articles (Tea Party movement and Tea Party protests, 2009) or leave them separate. What we should name them and what should be the distinguishing characteristics we can leave to another vote but we have to start somewhere. Remember, you can always simply not follow the proposed consenus, if you feel strongly enough.

If you agree that we are ready for a trail consensus vote, please enter your comment below as a short bullet point.

• Support keeping the articles separate. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
  • But see in my reply to Izauze below. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 13:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support keeping the articles separate. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:13, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Neutral, but I'm pretty sure there is a consensus for keeping separate. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 16:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support keeping the articles separate. Rationale: In the emergent order of American political history, it really does seem that there were, initially a few, and later a series, of "tea party protests" that occurred in 2009. As the year progressed, this gradually modified from "protests" (generally labeled such by the media accounts) and began, by very late in the year, to be referred to by media commentators and in media accounts as the "tea party movement". Myriad sources support this distinction. And it is a useful distinction. I think the two articles should be retained for now, where they will evolve in the standard Wikipedia way, and only later will we be able to see how much of the 2009 protests were really crystallized into the later tea party movement. N2e (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support keeping the articles separate.Malke2010 18:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose maintaining two seperate articles about the same phenomenon.: It seems everyone acknowledges in some respect that this is one movement which has passed through several stages as it has matured. It began as a series of protests, gained support from some media outlets and political commentators/organizers, started to become slightly more organized with formal groups (profit and nonprofit) entering the picture, had a convention, and so on (or something to that effect). As such, we have to recognize that any article about the movement will also include information about its roots in the 2009 protests. Thus the Movement article will contain Protests info regardless of whether there is one article or two. Which means that the 2nd article's only valid purpose would seem to be to add much more detailed info about the 2009 protests - otherwise it's just redundant and confusing for newcomers who just want to know more about this tea party thing and are unsure which of the 2 articles is the "right one". -- Izauze (talk) 11:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I, in part, agree with you. Unless someone comes up with a reason why the three 2009 protests (Tax Day, Independence Day, Taxpayer March) that are included in the current Tea Party protests, 2009 article should be joined together, I would prefer them to be further divided into three separate articles, one for each protest. See "Distinction based on time?" below. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 13:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I agree. If the individual protests are important as events separate from their context within the movement, then those events each deserve their own event page. (A collective page for all of them however seems redundant because their connection is only justified by the existence of the larger movement) --Izauze (talk) 09:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support keeping the articles separate, for reasons cited previously. --Happysomeone (talk) 17:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I tried to ask you about those reasons, but you probably missed it. In short, your argument is largely based on the idea of precedent - could you provide examples of this precedent for us? -Izauze (talk) 09:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Please see here. Precedent is one of the reasons.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:04, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you. Very respectfully, I disagree that the example you provide (non-specific article on "Anti-War") is an appropriate precedent. If we were discussing - for instance - a general "Anti-Tax" article, it would be apt. However, the Tea Party Movement is a very specific movement - much more in line with the specific Anti-Vietnam War Movement -- which is represented by one main article with links to individual notable moments or events for expansion.

Thus, unless you provide something else, I don't think you have described a precedent for maintaining two separate articles. Actually I think this proves the exact opposite. A single movement deserves one central article. Any expansion on a particular element of note can be provided. Like in Vietnam's case there are articles about Kent State, but no article about a year long series of events... because the movement IS how we describe the connection within a series. --Izauze (talk) 08:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Izauze, we do have a general "Anti-Tax" article already. It's named Tax revolt. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

RoyGoldsmith, I was not disputing the existence of an Anti-Tax article. I am saying that using the general Anti-War article as a precedent for this article on a specific movement is applying a false precedent. In the terms you provide below, it seems as if he is trying to use level (1) of one topic's heirarchy to provide a precedent for level (3) in another... --Izauze (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Happysomeone, I don't understand either. You say the hierarchy for anti-war protests is: (1) Anti-war, which has a linked sub-article named (2) Opposition to the Iraq War, which links to (3) Protests against the Iraq War, which finally links to (4) a series of individual articles: February 15, 2003 anti-war protest, March 20, 2003 anti-war protest, 2003 Port of Oakland dock protest, etc. (I assume that anyone who wants to can expand, say, the September 12, 2002 UN protest or the March 22–23, 2003 worldwide protest -- or any other anti-war protest -- into a separate subarticle, assuming they have sufficient references.)

I absolutely agree with you. In my hierarchy we have: (1) a general "Tax revolt" article (to be written, for all countries as is Anti-war), which would link to (2) "US Tax revolts" (renamed from Tax revolt), which links to (3) Tea Party movement and then to (4) a series of individual articles, for example: Tax Day Tea Party protest in 2009, Independence Day Tea Party protest in 2009, Tea Party convention in February 2010 and as many more as their are editors who'll write them. Every sub-article would have a brief summary subsection in its "main" article and a "{{main}}" template that would link the two articles together.

I really don't care what we name the particular articles themselves: Tea Party movement, Tea Party revolts or Tea Party protests are all the same to me. I just want to get the hierarchy right and, in particular, that the main Tea Party article (3, by whatever name) links to the individual protest articles (4). If somebody wants to write a new article combining several protests together on a rational basis, like say "Tea Party protests [or movement or revolts] organized by Tea Party Nation [or Patriots or Express]", and linked to the main article, that would make sense as well. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Precisely my thoughts re: this hierarchy. It clearly seems to make the most sense to organize in this fashion. --Izauze (talk) 00:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been invited to return to this discussion by Roy, but I'm honestly not sure where to go with this. The essence of my opposition is focused on WP:SS and following the general principals laid down there. I think they'd greatly benefit the article and help it conform best to the principals of Wikipedia, insofar as I understand them. Merging these two articles would be going against the grain of that.

All of us agree that the two articles (Tea Party movement and Tea Party protests, 2009) will remain separate. That is not in question.

If that's true, and the merge discussion of these two articles is complete, then please kindly cap this discussion, follow the template and remove the merge tag.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

We are now talking about spliting Tea Party protests, 2009 into three or four separate articles, one for each protest.

Ah. I'd be happy to discuss that at the appropriate forum. With due respect, this talk page isn't it.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

As you wish; see Closing Merge Discussion below. I only thought that this would be a good way of distinguishing Movement content from Protests content, which was originally a goal of these merge discussions. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That's all. No information in Tea Party protests, 2009 will be lost. If we follow this course, we'll wind up with 4 articles: "Tea Party movement" and, on a lower level, "Tax Day Tea Party protest", "Independence Day Tea Party Protests" and "Taxpayer March on Washington". Each of the last three sub-articles will have a summary subsection in the Tea Party movement article, per WP:SS. History and Tactics will be merged into similar subsections in Tea Party movement.

Happysomeome, could you address this specific issue? What's wrong with having three articles (or more) for protests rather than just one? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 23:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I was not aware that a discussion had started on splitting Tea Party protests, 2009. That discussion should be on its talk page, not here. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

See my reply to Happysomeone above. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

We seem to have wandered down a rabbit hole on the discussion on hierarchy, and specifically discussing related articles and how they handle that differently. That isn't at issue here. We should stay focused for now on whether or not the Tea Party protests, 2009 should stay separate from the Tea Party movement. Again, one of the principal reasons for keeping the articles separate is the protests article continually overran its scope, such as documenting the 2010 Tea Party convention or the latest public opinion poll. There was no "movement" article at the time that seemed a better and more relevant place for this sort of material. As for what belongs where, this seems to be a discussion for later.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate all your work. I definitely couldn't keep up with all the edits going on... And I'm sorry to add any additional workload by leading the discussion toward other articles, I just found the precedents some editors were trying to apply to this article were false precedents. My concern is not that we shouldn't have daughter articles, but that this particular daughter article seems to lack a clear limited border which justifies its spinoff.

Clearly, I disagree.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It used to be "Tea Party Protests" (sans "2009") before the protests grew into a movement. In order to give the article a separate identity and purpose from "Tea Party Movement" (which is heretofore largely comprised of a series of protests), "2009" was added to the title. ...Because if you don't add "2009" it becomes quite obvious that "Tea Party Protests" and "Tea Party Movement" are essentially the same animal. But for me that attempted distinction seems arbitrary and misplaced. As pointed out by others here, I doubt we will find the need for another "2010 protests" article or "2011" or "2012".

Sbowers3 might have something to say about that, thoroughly documenting the numerous reported gatherings that allegedly fall under the "Tea Party" umbrella.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Lists are obviously different. But Tea Party protests, 2009 is not a list -- it doesn't just compile, it attempts to create some sort of meaning by linking events together. Its "reason for existence" is that these events, linked together, create a meaning that separately, they do not. So I ask simply what that is. What makes it a separate entity with a cultural significance different than The Movement? Since I cannot find a reason for this link that distinguishes it (and don't think anyone else has provided one, nor a valid precedent), I first strongly support a merge. Barring that (since consensus for a merge seems somewhat unlikely), I suppose the battlefield can be shifted to whether to SPLIT the link created by this article, but I find no justification for its existence in the first place. --Izauze (talk) 03:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably just a poor choice of words, but Wikipedia is not a battlefield. It's always good to go have a look at what Wikipedia is and is not.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

battle is about uncivil methods and personal attacks - quite obviously not something I was endorsing or engaging in. The turn of phrase is an appropriate and innocuous reference to shifting the debate to another stage. --Izauze (talk) 20:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The precise date of the protests isn't what supporters of this separate article seem to find important to preserve, but the idea of an early period of the movement - the informal roots of the movement - a History of The Tea Party Movement or Early Tea Party Movement, if you will.

For now, the year 2009 suits this purpose fine and there was consensus for that, as well as moving much of the contents to Tea Party movement.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

THAT is something I could see justification for (though the movement still seems to be in its infancy). Either that or daughter articles for any particularly important individual protests as RoyGoldsmith (talk has suggested. But linking a series of protests under the banner of a collective meaning is largely what the movement article does, and thus creating another article that does the same thing becomes an unjustified split IMO. At this point though I just want to move on so we can focus more on defining the boundaries for each article and getting them tightened up - but I do think that job will be easier if we start from the right place. --Izauze (talk) 20:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

[Re: Sbowers3 and Happysomeone] -- I have one last thing I'd like to introduce before we decide to close this... In my recent review of wikipedia:consensus and wikipedia:what is consensus? I am finding a lot of language related to the idea of building consensus by trying to understand and accommodate the honest, good-faith concerns of the opposing Editors. And that, in the interest of coming to a decision that respects these points, negotiations of sort can be entered into where any number of ideas and proposals can be on the table. Since a number of editors have expressed that their reluctance to support two separate articles is based largely on a perception of an unjustified and/or redundant link found in Tea Party Protests, 2009, why can't we ask that the termination or redefinition of this link be part of the possible negotiation tools in order to achieve a consensus? If a SPLIT (or even a boundary/name change) is what it takes to possibly achieve a compromise and a consensus inbetween the merge and non-merge positions, then shouldn't that proposal be allowed here? Wikipedia says "begin by understanding the group's interests, and work towards a proposal that meets those collective interests." I believe we have tried to understand and accommodate your interests re: the preservation of this expanded information on these central events and re: preserving the historical roots of the movement, but I haven't seen any proposals or compromise that attempts to acknowledge or address our interests or concerns. I believe both proposals of SPLITting the link or redefining the nature of the link could do that and should be on the table here, though I would be happy to hear other opinions from (admittedly) more experienced editors... --Izauze (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for all the editors, but from my view this is the second time consensus has been reached in a relatively short span of time on keeping the two separate. The consensus has been repeatedly built, in good faith. It's all here for you to review, presently on the talk page and in the archive. Certainly, all-manner of proposals can be brought to the fore at the appropriate talk page. But it would be a disservice to other editors and is against guidelines to start discussions here on altering a different article. I'd be happy to continue discussing whatever proposals you have. It's also been my view that while a "move" was performed, the article was in essence split instead. Hence the two articles. That was a condition of the move. If that seems confuseing, then on behalf of my part in the move/split I apologize. If you seek to shift content here or there, you'll need to bring it up at the appropriate place. My 2 cents.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The post you've responded to was written before consensus was declared as an attempt to garner recognition of repeatedly expressed concerns about the merge which I felt were not being fully considered or addressed by those who favored the status quo position. And since this merge discussion was a part of both articles, I don't find that it violates guidelines to keep splitting or renaming on the table as a tool to find consensus on the merge. Nevertheless, it seems moot as consensus was declared regardless of these concerns. But they can be addressed in the future on the TPP page. --Izauze (talk) 20:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose keeping the articles separate: "I oppose keeping them separate because eventually the 2009 protests will fade in importance and will need to be merged into the main article anyway. Do we have separate articles for every year's protests? That seems silly to me. 68.101.143.168 (talk) February 17th 2010" (copy/pasted by Izauze (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

By the way, I just noticed that Cirt (talk) has fully protected the Tea Party protests, 2009 article until next Sunday. I didn't realized that there was so much going on (4 archives for discussion!) for such a small article. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 13:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The 4 archives were split from this article and left behind at Tea Party protests, 2009. While that article may currently exist as a type of daughter article, the archives are pretty much from the old Tea Party protests article. Maybe this is something we can fix down the road.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Distinction based on time?

I am confused. N2e says that "Myriad sources support this distinction [of separating Protests from Movement based on the time of the news report]. And it is a useful distinction." Why is it a useful distinction? Many subjects have changed their names as time went on but Wikipedia always tries to refer to them by their current name. (The Boston Tea Party itself was known by various names -- like the destruction of tea at Boston Harbor -- before the phrase "Boston Tea Party" became standard.) Can anyone explain this distinction about the modern Tea Party to me? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization?

I included this subsection under MERGE DISCUSSION, which should contain any discussion about naming the Tea Party articles. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 09:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Two editors question whether we should capitalize "Tea Party" or just "tea party". E.g. should the title be "Tea Party movement" or "Tea party movement"; in a sentence "The tea party movement also includes ..." or "The Tea Party movement also includes ...". It's a good question with no obvious right or wrong answer. So let's develop a consensus one way or the other and then stick to it.

In the !vote let's stick to just one or two lines of explanation and put any longer comments after the !votes.

• Capitalize as "Tea Party" because that is the de facto name of the movement and because that is the majority usage in RS. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:28, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia guidelines say that we should follow whatever is the most common usage. My sense is that "Tea Party" is capitalized in most, if not all newspaper articles. It would be helpful if those who *don't* want this capitalized would provide news articles where the capitalization is lacking. In any case, let's *not* argue this based on "common sense" or a similar approach; rather, we should use newspaper and similar reliable sources to decide. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I argree. Possibly with a redirect for the uncapitalized names. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 08:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• "Tea Party" comes from "Boston Tea Party" which is a proper noun. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 01:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Closing Merge Discussion

Unless someone has objections, I intend to close and archive this discussion and remove the merge tags in both articles. (The Tea Party protests, 2009 article will have to wait until it becomes unlocked Sunday night.)

The results are:

• We should NOT merge Tea Party movement and Tea Party protests, 2009, per the Summary of Positions as of Monday, February 8, 2010 and the vote in Consensus? above.
• We should continue capitalizing both words of Tea Party in article titles, per the Capitalization? discussion immediately above.

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Please post any new Merge Discussion subsections (that do not relate to any of the subsections above) here, rather than at the end of this talk page. Also please use three equal signs (not two) on your subsection heading so that it will be grouped under MERGE DISCUSSION above.

===Like This===

Please post any comments that directly relate to the above subsections WITHIN those subsections themselves. If you want, you can post a short referencing note about your addition directly below.

• See the Vote? subsection and my comment on Bring Up to Date above. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

If you want to see what's been happening to this talk page since the last time you edited, go to this talk page's history. Click the radio button next to your last edit and press <Compare selection revisions>. This will help you identify changes within the subsections above.

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 19:12, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

One more piece

(I would have waited for RoyGoldsmith to archive the merge discussion because he is the one who closed it, but there is one piece I want to discuss more but did not want to be inside the closed discussion, so I apologize for skirting the edges of protocol.

Here is the piece copied from above that might merit more discussion. Sbowers3 (talk) 19:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC))

[Re: Sbowers3 and Happysomeone] -- I have one last thing I'd like to introduce before we decide to close this... In my recent review of wikipedia:consensus and wikipedia:what is consensus? I am finding a lot of language related to the idea of building consensus by trying to understand and accommodate the honest, good-faith concerns of the opposing Editors. And that, in the interest of coming to a decision that respects these points, negotiations of sort can be entered into where any number of ideas and proposals can be on the table. Since a number of editors have expressed that their reluctance to support two separate articles is based largely on a perception of an unjustified and/or redundant link found in Tea Party protests, 2009, why can't we ask that the termination or redefinition of this link be part of the possible negotiation tools in order to achieve a consensus? If a SPLIT (or even a boundary/name change) is what it takes to possibly achieve a compromise and a consensus inbetween the merge and non-merge positions, then shouldn't that proposal be allowed here? Wikipedia says "begin by understanding the group's interests, and work towards a proposal that meets those collective interests." I believe we have tried to understand and accommodate your interests re: the preservation of this expanded information on these central events and re: preserving the historical roots of the movement, but I haven't seen any proposals or compromise that attempts to acknowledge or address our interests or concerns. I believe both proposals of SPLITting the link or redefining the nature of the link could do that and should be on the table here, though I would be happy to hear other opinions from (admittedly) more experienced editors... --Izauze (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Could you please elaborate? What is the "unjustified and/or redundant link" found in the other article? Sbowers3 (talk) 19:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The language might be more confusing than intended, but I am using "link" as shorthand for how Tea Party Protests link together information about a number of early protests over the 12 months of 2009. A number of us have expressed reservations about maintaining this second article because either we can't seem to find a justifiable reason these protests are linked together into one meaningful entity (if it is because they describe an early, pre-convention period or a historical root of the movement, than perhaps it is misnamed; if it is not the link between them that is important to preserve, but simply the ability to access info about a few specific important events, then perhaps it should be split) and/or because their linkage seems to be motivated primarily by how together they comprise the movement -- which would flirt with being redundant with THIS article. Ultimately our unanswered question seems to be: how is this specific 12 month period of protests collectively important in a way that distinguishes it from how the collective movement (found in this, its parent article) is important? If the article was about ALL the protests, it would at least be a justified spinoff and expansion on the "protests" section of this article (though it might seem even more redundant), but now it is 12/14ths of the protests thus far, which doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. If we can answer or address these questions, not only will it help alleviate our concerns, but it will probably help each of the resultant articles find a clearer identity and a stronger foundation on which we can more easily build. --Izauze (talk) 21:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I thought you were using "link" as shorthand for "wikilink" but you're using "link" to refer to the connections between events and in what way they should be separated from what is in this article.

I haven't completely worked out my thoughts on why the two articles should be separate - or I would have answered RoyGoldsmith's questions on that topic earlier - but here is what I am thinking. This article, TP movement, describes what the movement is, what they believe, what they support/oppose, who they are, what are the various components, and perhaps what effect they have had on the (political) world. The daughter article, TP protests, describes the actions they have taken, and how the movement has evolved over the months.

TP protests probably needs even more work than this movement article. It makes it appear that the protests mostly occurred at a few specific times. The reality is that they occurred almost weekly. There was the early formative stage, then the April 15 events, then many more events, July 4th, then August Congressional recess events, some outdoors like previous protests, some indoors at town meetings, then the 9/12 March on Washington, events continued in the following months up to the National Convention put on by one of the many Tea Party subgroups, and protests continue. The focus of protests changed over that year, starting with the stimulus and bailouts, then some mention of cap and tax, then mostly health care reform, and all along a demand for smaller government, less spending, less borrowing, etc.

By the way, I do think - was it RoyGoldsmith who first suggested it? - that TP protests, 2009 should be moved to just TP protests (without the year).

Did I correctly interpret what you are asking and does that help answer it? Sbowers3 (talk) 00:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. And I do think that expanding the daughter article to be about the protests in general does help solve some of its identity problems in relation to this, its parent article. One problem that might be encountered though is that they seem to have quite recently approved changing it to 2009... but I think this might have to be reevaluated with an eye towards its relationship with the Movement article. --Izauze (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

A couple of points:

1. I've removed the merge tags on both articles (TPP just became unfrozen) so the closing of the merge discussion is now complete. (Although we could rename this section "Merge Discussion II". :)
2. Izauze, where are they discussiing changing Tea Party protests, 2009 back to Tea Party protests (no year)? BTW, Tea Party protests is currently a redirect to Tea Party protests, 2009.
3. If we're agreed that TPM is the main article and TPP is the daughter then, according to WP:SS, there ought to be a summary section in TPM titled (say) "Major Tea Party protest events" with a {{main}} link to TPP. If someone could come up with such a summary, I believe that this might resolve some of the difficulties we are having with distinction between TPM and TPP.
4. Lastly, I believe the major participants in the present discussion are currently Happysomeone, Sbowers3, Izauze and myself ('tho anyone else can join in). What would you say having about an IRC/chat conversation about the TPM and TPP? I live on the east coast of the US and work at home so I would be available most any day from 13:00 to 3:00, UTC.

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 23:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

re #2 I'm not sure who first brought up the idea of reverting to TPP without a year, but I do recommend it. The article is not large enough that it needs to be split by year. If later it does get too big, we can split it at that time. For now, it will read better as one article without an arbitrary split by year. re #3, we sort of have a summary with a {{see also}} instead of a {{main}}. The first step should be to rewrite the TPP article, then summarize it here - see my comment in Talk:TPP.

Please look at WP:SS#Basic technique. Doesn't this say we should build a summary section in the main article at the same time we're building the lead section in the daughter article. I'm not saying this just for form. If we can't summarize what should be in the TPp article in its lead section then (IMO) there'll always be massive overlap due to scope creep between it and TPm. Please look here for a suggestion about the lead.

I suggest we transfer our discussion to the Tea Party protests, 2009 talk page and leave this "Merge Discussion II" to die quietly. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

re #4: I've never used IRC and am too old to learn how. :-) Sorry. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Reviewing the archive for TPP2009, I see that the name change was simultaneous lumped in with the split proposal that created the movement. I understand why they were drawn to the idea of using "2009" - they mentioned emphasizing the importance of pre-convention protests, but the events were not limited to 2009... and besides, any article about protests is always going to emphasize the most important ones, and the most important ones will generally be those same early ones. I agree that if the length of the article one day becomes unwieldy THEN talk of splitting it by year or pre and post convention or whatever can be discussed. But I guess a renaming proposal has to be broached over there, right? Now to figure out how to do that..

I agree with #3 that this is the main article and TPP will be the daughter article - and if we're able to find some consensus for not limiting it to 2009, this will work a lot better as there is already a general protests section in the movement article (of course both could probably use some work)

re #4, If anyone else finds an IRC chat useful, I can be there, time independent --Izauze (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all these actions, Izauze (talk). It really helps discussions when the context is mutually understood and demonstrates respect to those who have already reviewed many of these same points that have been recast here. I tried and failed to link the archive over there to here to help everyone understand the background of our discussions in the past. Salutations.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tags?

This article is tagged for multiple issues:

• Its neutrality is disputed.
• It may contain original research or unverifiable claims.
• It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

Are these tags still justified? I would ask the editor who added those tags but he retired as of today. So what do others think? If anybody thinks a tag should remain, please explain here so that we can have a discussion toward fixing any problems.

Tags such as these should not be placed without first initiating a discussion that specifically describes the problems. We can't fix a problem if we don't know what it is. If nobody identifies specific problems, then the tags should be removed.

My initial impression is that there are not any problems that merit those tags. But if even one editor thinks there are problems, please identify them here. We'll leave the tags up until we have a consensus to remove them. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I do think the neutrality has been messy at various times to various degrees. I also think that it certainly requires cleanup and organization. But the 1st is very much tied to the 2nd, and the second is tied to the idea of delineating exactly what this article's role is in relation to the possible simultaneous existence of a second, slightly redundant article about the protests which contributed to what has now become a movement. If we can find its role we can find a organizational structure to best suit that role, and we can thus begin to eliminate some of the random tangents and unverifiable claims that might tend to skew the overall POV in one direction or another... -Izauze (talk) 14:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I hate it when people add tags and then neglect to explain on the talk page. Obviously this editor won't be giving any examples, so I'm removing the tags. (Except cleanup per Izauze & the ongoing discussion of scope.) MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I support MakeBelieveMonster being BOLD and removing the "undefended tags" that were excessive. N2e (talk) 19:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree with tag removal. The editor who added them did so when he couldn't get his way. See previous threads.Malke2010 03:15, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

New daughter articles

The most obvious part of the movement is the protests, but there are other parts we should cover. Especially with the Tea Party National Convention plan to endorse candidates in 2010. Here are some ideas for daughter articles:

• Tea Party National Convention or Tea Party Nation
• Tea Party Patriots (group opposing the convention)

MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 19:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting newspaper article

Extracts from http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100207/NEWS/100206011:

A third of Iowans from across the political spectrum say they support the “tea party” movement, sounding a loud chorus of dissatisfaction with government, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll.

Independents account for nearly half of tea party supporters, Republicans represent a third, and Democrats 17 percent.

And while most tea party supporters lean right (about 60 percent describe themselves as conservative), a third describe themselves as politically moderate, and 6 percent consider themselves liberal.

Almost 90 percent of both groups say the federal government is spending too much, while more than six in 10 of both say the same about state government.

The Iowa Poll’s findings align with a national CNN poll last month in which a third of Americans said they had a favorable view of the tea party.

Sbowers3 (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Another interesting article - The Economist:

“ A year ago this movement did not exist. Now it is by some accounts the most potent force in American politics. ”

“ Even after a long weekend of speeches and workshops in Nashville, the precise composition, aims and ideology of this movement remain hard to pin down. That is because the tea-party is precisely what its supporters say it is: not an artificial “Astroturf” creation of the Republican Party, but a genuine grassroots movement, highly decentralised and composed of many people who have not participated in politics before. They have no agreed platform and no unified national organisation: the Tea Party Nation is itself only one of many tea-party organisations that have sprung up spontaneously around America. These people are learning their trade, honing their tactics and defining their politics as they go along. ”

Sbowers3 (talk) 04:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, interesting article. I liked the New Yorker article, too.Malke2010 08:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate material in lede

Loremaster has three times inserted inappropriate material into the lede. I am again removing it for these reasons:

• It does not have a reliable source.
• It violates WP:UNDUE "the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all". If there are sources to show that it is more than a tiny minority, then let's see them.
• It violates WP:LEDE: "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article."

A single opinion piece is by definition a tiny minority. If there are in fact sufficient RS to make this a minority - not a tiny minority - perspective, then and only then might it be appropriate to include in the body. And then if it satisfies LEDE "the relative emphasis given to material in the lead should reflect its relative importance to the subject according to reliable sources" might it be included in the lede. Until then, policy says that this material should be deleted. Sbowers3 (talk) 03:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I reverted an attempt to restore this material. - Crosbiesmith (talk) 16:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

1. False. The source is reliable. The only problem is that one must subscribe to the online version of Z magazine in order to read Berlet's article. That's why I provided a link to blog that reproduced the content of the article.
2. False. It is not a minority opinion. Countless progressive and conversative commentators have described the Tea Party movement as a right-wing populist movement that popularizes conspiracism. That being said, I will provide more sources.
3. True. When I find the time, I will work on creating a section in the body of the article focusing on criticisms of the Tea Party movement by sociologists and political scientists.

--Loremaster (talk) 16:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the statistics in the lead should be dropped. If you look at the source it comes from a source (CNN) that often has it's own baised view. Far more importantly the poll directly states that this is a non random poll. Seeing as the the population of the US is about 75% white , I see no reason to state in the opening paragraph that the tea party movement is 80% white unless trying to unfairly make it look like the teaparties are overwhelmingly white supremacist groups. Also due to the high variety of the nature and organization of tea parties I would be somewhat unlikely to believe a poll to show a good estimate of the make-up of all of the groups in the nation (particularly with a sample size of only 1,023) even if done by a reputable polling group such as a Gallop poll.

--RyanG92 (talk) 18:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If you scroll down you will see a section asking for 'consensus for moving (not eliminating) breakdown of participants in the lead.' I agree with you that this poll is probably aiming more to characterize the protesters in a negative way and I said that in my post in the other section. I think it would be all right to remove it for now and place it elsewhere until a consensus can be reached about what section, if any, this poll belongs in. Especially since the methodology is not revealed, it is misleading.Malke2010 00:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Grassroots/Astroturf in the lede

(I moved these comments into their own section because they didn't seem to have much relevance to the Merge discussion. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC))

To answer the majority/minority question about grassroots/astroturf, I read the all of the hundreds of references in List of Tea Party protests, 2009. My conclusion is that grassroots is the predominant perspective of those sources. Regarding RoyGoldsmith's thought about "Tea Party protests" (without the year) I'm beginning to lean in that direction. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I see. The vast majority of content at that article is composed of spot reporting - a snapshot of the event, if you will, with interviews of participants. So I could see how you would get that impression. Of course, this phenomenon is much bigger than that. For example, we know that the Tea Party Express and the Sept. 12 march was largely organized and funded by conservative political activists. We also know that Tea Party Patriots are (listed as "partners") supported by Freedomworks (scroll to the bottom of the page), Newt Gingrich's 527 American Solutions for Winning the Future and Michelle Malkin. So this should really be sending up some red flags when the claim "This is grassroots" is made.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:16, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

How about "The Tea Party movement is a United States conservative and libertarian protest movement, described by some adherents as "grassroots". It emerged in early 2009..."? Or how about substituting the phrase "mass movement"; to wit, "The Tea Party movement is a United States conservative and libertarian mass protest movement..."?

In my opinion, all protest events are "grassroots", even those that a lot of people think are professionally managed and funded. When they evolve into something resembling a political party (does a movement qualify?), they cease to be grassroots. The problem is with the technical definition of grassroots (popular, arising from many places) versus the pejorative definition (grassroots = good).

However, all of this has very little to do with the decision on whether to merge the two articles? It really belongs in a separate, top-level section below. :) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the movement has elements of both "grassroots participation" and "corporate coordination". Yes, if you ask the protesters they are sincerely behind their ideals. And yes, if you look at Tea Party Express or Tea Party Nation you will find that they're trying to use the movement for their own aims. ("The Republican party would be smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party as possible.") The article should reflect both aspects. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with MakeBelieveMonster. There are elements of both. However, the astroturfing should not dominate. It was a small part that got wide media coverage for the corporate purposes of those media outlets. They were selling product, nothing more. Notice how they never interviewed a single individual protester who said, "Never heard of Freedomworks. I'm here because I just lost my house."Malke2010 18:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

How about having (1) a single sentence in the lead, saying something like "Right now there is a controversy over whether the term grassroots should be applied to the Tea Party movement or whether there is too much astroturfing (orchestrated by traditional power structures) for the term to be appropriate" and (2) a section (and, if necessary, a sub-article) called something like "Controversy about Grassroots versus Astroturfing". --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 10:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

No. The only controversy is on this page. People in the movement see it as grassroots. Also, if someone sees a flyer about a demonstration, leaves their house, shows up, etc., that doesn't make him or her conservative or libertarian. It just means he showed up because there's something there that spoke to his interests. Groups like Freedomworks are trying to co-opt it, but they didn't start it, etc. What would motivate someone to leave their house and show up someplace just to support the agenda of an organization? People weren't doing it before the stimulus package.Malke2010 05:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

"Grassroots" is a really vague and subjective concept. Is a protest grassroots if it's only the organizers? If it's organized by non-professionals? If the participants know each other?

We should state the facts and let people make this judgement for themselves. We should describe how the protests are organized and leave it at that. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

No, we should not "state the facts" about how the protests are organized. As Wikipedia editors, we are not responsible for "the facts" (whatever that means); we are only responsible for what is verifiable based on reliable sources. I quote from our core policy Wikipedia:Verifiability: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" and "All articles must adhere to Wikipedia's neutrality policy, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view". So if the preponderance of sources deem the Tea Party movement as "grassroots", Wikipedia should so state with a subsection on "Grassroots versus Astroturfing".

Now I agree that our determination of what constitutes a preponderance of reliable sources is a question. Do we just count -- 146 for grassroots, 79 for astroturfing, 835 that don't mention either? (Boy, that's a long line of inline citations!) Do we give recent sources more weight? (Say, give any reports in the last month extra credit or totally ignore reports over 3 months old?) What determines if the preponderance is large enough to include "grassroot" in the definition up at the beginning of the article? I don't believe that anyone seriously objects to having the word "grassroots" somewhere in the article. The problem is that some people want to have it in the definition or the first paragraph while other people do not.

But I've got to say, when I was looking up Tea Party for the first time (because I didn't know what the pundits were talking about), I was glad that, at that time (only three weeks ago, sigh), grassroots was still in the definition. To me, at any rate, it was worthwhile to have it in such a prominent position, even if, later in the article, I also learned about Astroturfing (which I again had never heard of). This is only one person's opinion. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

When I say "facts" I mean "facts that are verifiable and sourced per wikipedia guidelines" but that's awfully long to write. But good point, for some people it means "what I think."

I don't think there's likely to be consensus to state as fact that Tea Party is "grassroots" or "astroturf" in the article. But what makes more sense (and what we do now) is to cite other people's views. Citizens at the protests, Talking Points Memo, etc.

The really tricky issue is dealing with this topic in the lead. The initial draft used the word "populist," which I still like. It suggests the movement has passionate supporters without implying that they're organizing the protests themselves. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 03:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll throw in with whatever the majority wants, but I think the lead needs to be as neutral as possible so random editors don't roll along and start the delete/edit war/ cycle, so that every time we come to the page it says something different.Malke2010 06:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll throw my hat in and say that I don't think using "grassroots" is a problem in general, but using it (especially in the abstract/lead/summary) without at least referencing the opposition viewpoint is not reflecting neutrality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Izauze (talk • contribs) 09:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary defines grassroots as "Of, or relating to people or society at the local level". --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

And is there a good deal of dispute regarding how much this movement was born wholly "of the people at the local level"? Absolutely. So remain neutral... use the word, mention the controversy - seems easy enough to do both.

(I also support MakeBelieveMonster's points re: "populist")--Izauze (talk) 19:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus on Grassroots or Populist

Should we try for a consensus?

I propose that the word "grassroots" be permited in the article's first sentence definition, until and unless the word ceases to be used extensively as a general descriptive term for the movement in reliable sources.

• Support the use of "grassroots" in the definition. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support the use of "grassroots" in the lede. There seems to be an overwhelming number of sources that speak of the grassroots nature of the protests, the movement, and those who show up at the movement. Several of them do it explicitly, and are quoted in the current article. N2e (talk) 20:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support the use of grassroots in the lead as per N2e rationale.Malke2010 23:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the use of the word "grassroots" as a descriptor in the lede. Given all of the verifiable information that we have, it doesn't seem to 1) be as accurate as "populist" (per MakeBelieveMonster and 2) doesn't seem to meet WP:NPOV or WP:MOSBEGIN ("needs to unambiguously define the topic").--Happysomeone (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose because there is a significant minority of sources disputing that description. If we use "grassroots" we would have to (1) attribute that description and (2) acknowledge the controversy - which all becomes fairly cumbersome. Conversely, I don't think anyone would dispute the label "populist." MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 03:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose describing the movement as "grassroots" without acknowledging the controversy. As the body of the article reflects the great deal of dispute about the nature of the movement, it seems a great violation of WP:NPOV to not reflect ANY of that in the lead. --Izauze (talk) 06:14, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose using "grassroots" as a "general descriptive term for the movement" in the lede, without also referencing the considerable non-grassroots nature of the movement as well. While there is certainly a grassroots component to Tea Party movement activity, there is also significant influence on the movement by the traditional power structures (i.e.; Media promotion by FOX News; Issue steering by the Republican Party; financing by professional conservative lobbyists and other astroturfing, etc.). "Grassroots", by itself, is not an accurate description - and an accurate description requires more space than the lede section affords us. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support the use of "grassroots" in the lede because the majority of hundreds of references indicate that the participants are indeed grassroots. Sbowers3 (talk) 02:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, with all of the editing activity we see in the first sentence of the lede, it's likely this type of discussion may be needed for other words or phrases. I would kindly ask editors here to familiarize themselves with all aspects of WP:LEDE to guide this discussion. Kind Regards.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. We don't seem to be reaching a consensus on "grassroots". How about this?

1. I propose that the word "populist" (instead of "grassroots") be permited in the article's first sentence definition. This says nothing about what may appear in the second sentence or thereafter.
2. I further propose that the word "grassroots" not be permited in the article's first paragraph.
3. Finally I propose that, if "grassroots" is included anywhere in the lead section, the controversy about grassroots versus professionally-organized astroturfing be acknowledged in the same paragraph.

• Support proposals (1), (2) and (3). --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 04:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support all three proposals. --darolew (talk) 05:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Only the third proposal. The lead will be balanced for those who believe it's either grassroots or Astroturf. It's actually both, like all major organized political movements on either side of the spectrum. Doesn't matter, though. It seems the lead has been hijacked using some ridiculous CNN poll with a 9% margin of error. †TE†Talk 06:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

But see the section below on moving that material. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess I should've just created a new section, instead of mentioning it here. †TE†Talk 18:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support all three. Also, how did the lead sentence end up saying, it's a right wing etc. etc. etc.? Did we agree to that? Does Happysomeone know?Malke2010 08:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Malke2010, I haven't the foggiest idea how it got there, though I'm sure you can find out by reviewing the edit history. I've been trying to monitor the numerous edits there (as I noted above & in several ES pleas to editors) but can't keep up. Perhaps someone can request a semi-protected page. I'm getting very tired of it.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support all three. --Izauze (talk) 13:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support all three.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support all three. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 03:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone: I mentioned it because we're all slogging away here trying to make this thing work and then someone comes along not even using the talk page. How do we get it protected? Do just put a request on an admin's page?Malke2010 07:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Malke2010, my understanding per wiki's BE BOLD stance, is that edits don't necessarily need to be discussed. Someone who apparently understands this movement as right-wing in nature probably added it, and someone else eventually settled on the more diplomatic "fiscally conservative" description. Since no edit war resulted, it seems no discussion is necessary... and I would think, no protection is necessary. --Izauze (talk) 14:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Izauze, you're probably right about it not needing protection. I've been looking over some of the edits and unless the article starts getting heavy vandal traffic from IP's, I don't think an admin would consider it anyway. Thanks, Malke2010 00:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

We have a consensus at last (yea!). I'm adding "populist" and a long comment to the definition. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tea Party Nation and Tea Party Patriots

New articles. Y'all are invited to contribute. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 20:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Some editors have complained about too much coverage of "astroturfing" on the Movement page. Where it is specific to a particular group, it might be moved to that group's page. Also, there is a new editor (TeaPartyPatriots) who is a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. We should be aware of their potential conflict of interest. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 23:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, MakeBelieveMonster, it looks like the editor has made clear their personal involvement in the issue at hand. I think you're talking about Wikipedia's policy on editors promoting their own interests, and the severe constraints under which they are permitted to contribute. We'll also need to stay aware of WP:CFORK. There's a difference between WP:SS and forking, as I've recently learned. Here's the important bit:

"The moved material must be replaced with an NPOV summary of that material."

--Happysomeone (talk) 17:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, WP:CFORK is definitely the danger. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 03:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Marvel Comics

I think this section should be deleted for WP:RECENTISM but also, it's WP:UNDUE to have something as silly as this in it's own section, even if it merited a place in the article. Which I don't think it does.Malke2010 00:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but I tend to err on the side of inclusion. I note, repectfully, Malke2010 is of the opposite persuasion.--Happysomeone (talk) 00:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

perhaps move to "Response"? I agree it doesn't seem to merit its own section. --Izauze (talk) 10:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I gave it a shot. What do you think?--Happysomeone (talk) 19:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, good.Malke2010 08:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus for moving (not eliminating) breakdown of participants in the lead

User:Digagecivrights has inserted the following two sentences in the first paragraph of the article: "Approximately 80% of those who have participated in Tea Party activities are White Americans.[1] 60% of tea party protesters are male.[2]" The references are to a CNN poll and appear to be reliable and valid.

I propose to move these sentences down to the section Composition of the movement, probably just after the first paragraph.

Rationale:

1. This type of statistics does not belong in the lead (see WP:LEAD#Relative emphasis) but does definitely belong somewhere else in the article.
2. There are many other statistics about the Tea Party movement in the CNN poll that deserve a place in a online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Examples: 35% support for Tea Party, 16% would vote for a TP candidate, 4% of TP activists are Democrats, many others. Some of these statistics should be included as well.

Is there consensus for this?

• Support moving the two sentences above to the Composition section. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support the proposed move. --Izauze (talk) 15:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the proposed move. I tried several times to shift this content to the "Public Opinion polls" section instead, which is where it should belong. But a very persistent editor kept moving it back in to the lede. Moving it back to the "polls" section would meet the WP:VERIFY (specifically WP:SOURCES) and WP:NPOV hurdles for me.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this info, if it is useful at all, is useful as demographic information about the composition of the movement, as opposed to info about what the movement thinks, or what the public thinks of the movement. --Izauze (talk) 20:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the use of this poll is highly divisive. White males, women? Is the movement based in racism(I've been told the president is black)? Are their women too busy being barefoot and pregnant to partake in the activities? Seems like an attack to me.

Should we also use the poll to point out that 12% of the voting age population(VAP) has participated in the movement. That 74% of tea partiers have some form of college education. That those who have only graduated or dropped out of high school are far less likely to support it. That there is virtually no drop-off in the Hispanic community that supports the movement, compared to their VAP. That there is huge and alarming drop-off in the black community, an 82% difference from their VAP.

There are many more examples for an editor willing to spin this flimsy poll to identify an entire political movement. I suggest eliminating the use of this poll in it's entirety. †TE†Talk 18:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I definitely disagree with eliminating this poll entirely. Always lean towards inclusion rather than exclusion of valid information. I do however support the idea of adding any additional information that is useful to discuss the composition of the movement - such as education and support within the hispanic community so long as it comes from a valid source and is presented in a neutral manner. (for instance, not using words like "alarming" in regards to the level of support in the black community)--Izauze (talk) 18:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It would never make a edit using a term like alarming, I was just making a point. Generally, my edits are about as neutrally worded as humanly possible. Everything I listed is from the same poll, and I fear this one poll will be far too prevalent in the Composition of the movement section, at the least. There is so much that can be taken from the poll, too much. That's why I think it would be better not to use it. At least until more of these pop up in the upcoming elections, when the pollsters will be going wild. †TE†Talk 19:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I find the addition of the poll disturbing. Given the derisive attitude of the media to the protests and the protesters being called everything from red necks to tea baggers, etc., I find there's a racial element with this poll and I won't participate in that. If we're talking polls, what was the demographic makeup of the vote for Obama? I'll bet the majority of the voters were White. So the addition of that here, especially in the lead, is inappropriate in my opinion. This is afterall, an encyclopedia.Malke2010 07:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Patriot movement

Someone added this article as a "see also" for all TPM related articles. A recent New York Times article gives some support to this link: [10] I'm wondering if we should be removing the "see also" links or giving coverage to this in the text. Also, the patriot movement wikipedia article is really bad. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the Patriot Movement? Do you know?Malke2010 07:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

They're a more extreme right-wing group; the FBI considers them domestic terrorists. I'm sure they turn out en masse for the Tea Party protests, but it's unclear how much they're "part of the movement". MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 02:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Malke2010, have a look at Militia movement and Patriot movement.--Happysomeone (talk) 18:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks MBM and Happysomeone. Are we going to be putting something about them in this article? This is just my opinion, but I doubt they have the same agenda as the guy who just lost his house.Malke2010 18:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal (Tea Party movement & Tea Party Patriots)

Editor Koavf did not bother to explain the merge tag, so let's comment here:

• Oppose because TPP is a distinct organization that can be covered in detail. The articles are following WP:SUMMARY. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 14:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose same as MBM above ...if no reason is given, perhaps it should just be reverted. --Izauze (talk) 14:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose same as Izauze same as MBM.Malke2010 22:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Lead/Lede

The lead reads better. Who done it? Malke2010 22:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

raygold --Izauze (talk) 04:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Right, just saw above he did it after the consensus. Glad to see that worked. Now let's see how long it stays like that.Malke2010 23:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It lasted for about one day. Then anonymous user 67.235.213.182 removed populist. I restored it with a comment/message specifically targeted at 67.235.213.182. We'll see if that works. Growl (said more in disappointment than in anger). --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 04:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll raise the idea again: Is there any support at this point for semi-protecting this article?--Happysomeone (talk) 18:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Support. We're working well here and I think we could actually get this article to GA status. We could use the help. I asked an admin, Gwen Gale, earlier about this, and she said she'd keep tabs here. I'll ask her again if everybody agrees we need semi-protection.Malke2010 18:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll defer to whatever the consensus is on this one, but my instinct is to Oppose protection measures. A guy making a change here and there w/o regarding the talk page isn't too unexpected. Unless its en masse or repeated edit warring, I lean towards keeping everyone involved as much as possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Izauze (talk • contribs) 03:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It might be getting to that point. I guess this is more of a heads-up, folks this is an option type-thing.--Happysomeone (talk) 06:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If everybody is fine with a 'wait and see' stance, then we can just deal with randoms as needed. Also, be sure and mention the talk page discussions in your edit summaries. It will give these editors a heads up on what we're doing here.Malke2010 07:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

CNN Poll

I removed the CNN poll from the lead. I think we should come to a consensus fairly quickly on what is to be done with this, where it is best placed, if it is to be kept, etc., so as to avoid any edit warring.

Also, Roy, excellent job on embedding within the lead, all the work done on reaching consensus on 'populist.' That's a great idea for heading off problems.Malke2010 00:14, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, I tried several times to shift this content to the "Public Opinion polls" section instead, which is where it should belong. But a very persistent editor kept moving it back in to the lede. Moving it back to the "polls" section would meet the WP:VERIFY (specifically WP:SOURCES) and WP:NPOV hurdles for me.--Happysomeone (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Right now, CNN polls are cited in two sections of the article: the one taken Feb 12-15 at the bottom of "Composition of the movement" (which also mentions "White Americans") and the one in the middle of "Public opinion polls", taken Jan 22-24. I assume you're talking about the more recent one that's now in Composition. In the first place, I think this sentence should be moved to the end of Public opinion polls. I also think it should be expanded because (a) there's a wealth of valuable statistics that we could summarize and (b) so that it doesn't seem that the article is implying that the Tea Party movement is racially-motivated, for which we have no reliable sources (see WP:SYN).

Second, who is this "persistant editor"? If he's registered and moves the sentence back to either Composition or to the lead again, I would insert a friendly message to join our discussions on his user talk page after you've reverted it. If he's anonymous, you can always try sticking an invisible comment (<!--...-->) at the spot where you removed his text. If he does it again, we can report him to WP:ANEW, although I dislike reporting anyone to the sysops: you never know what they will do.

By the way, the use of the "lede" spelling would be discouraged in Wikipedia (see WP:NEO). I paraphrase from wikt:lede: Dated neologism intended to avoid confusion with "lead", which also meant a strip of metal used in US newspapers for positioning type on an old-style printing press. "Lead" or "lead section" is the proper usage within Wikipedia (see WP:LEAD). --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a single-purpose editor called Digagecivrights. I agree, it should be moved to the end of Public opinion polls. I tried to do that previously but didn't have support and was overwhelmed by said editor. By all means expand it. And thanks for the heads-up on proper wiki-usage of "Lead". Not sure it's technically a neologism, but hey, fine with me.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've moved the poll to Public opinion polls and left a long, friendly note on Digagecivrights talk page. We'll see if that works. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 05:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Very good, hope that works. Yes, putting the poll in Public opinion is a good idea.Malke2010 06:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ron Paul mention in Background subsection

While I don't agree that a Ron Paul "tea party" was the progenitor to the Tea Party movement, it's clearly relevant and claims have been made by Tea Party affiliate Campaign for Liberty that this fundraiser influenced the movement. It was in the immediate political background during the 2008 presidential campaign and his supporters shared (and still share) many of the same aims as the Tea Party movement. This content should be kept in the article. --Happysomeone (talk) 01:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What's the argument being made about it?Malke2010 02:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Over the past, oh, I'd say at least year or so, people have made various attempts to either credit Ron Paul with creating the Tea Party movement or scrub him from the article entirely. Based on the RS I've seen, I'd say the Ron Paul material merits a passing mention, but no more than that. Another editor has lately been persistent in the claim that nothing merits inclusion because there is no connection. That is clearly not the case.--Happysomeone (talk) 05:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, agree there should be mention. I just did a quick Google and lots of connections with Ron Paul are there.Malke2010 07:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

but how is he connected to this? Should all anti-tax events be added? He did use the same term, but it was for a different purpose and at a different time. I'll put back the text, but also some of the cites are not third-party RS. Jmcnamera (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You can state that Ron Paul used it for a different purpose and a different time.Malke2010 17:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Obama quote

I trimmed down the Obama section. The quote is rambling and loses the point. It's WP:UNDUE.Malke2010 18:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I did two boo-boos there: 1) made an edit before heading to WP:TALK and 2) Forgot to sign in. Sorry about that. I agree the quote is long, but not sure about rambling. By removing the end you're removing the kernel of his response (begining with "But ..."). It would be difficult to summarize the quote. Perhaps a judicious use of ellipses might accomplish your aim for maintaining "the point".--Happysomeone (talk) 20:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well let's work on that. I think we can cut out Claire McGaskill and the budget thing.Malke2010 21:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

On April 29, 2009, Obama commented on the Tea Party protests publicly during a townhall meeting in Arnold, Missouri, saying: ". . .(when) you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize Social Security. . .We are going to have to tighten our belts, but we're going to have to do it in an intelligent way. And we've got to make sure that the people who are helped are working American families, and we're not suddenly saying that the way to do this is to eliminate programs that help ordinary people and give more tax cuts to the wealthy. We tried that formula for eight years, and it did not work, and I don't intend to go back to it."

What about that?Malke2010 21:14, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay Happysomeone, since I haven't heard from you, I put that edit in.Malke2010 21:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!--Happysomeone (talk) 18:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

On April 29, 2009, Obama commented on the Tea Party protests publicly during a townhall meeting in Arnold, Missouri, saying: " (When) you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize Social Security ... But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got. We are going to have to tighten our belts, but we're going to have to do it in an intelligent way. And we've got to make sure that the people who are helped are working American families, and we're not suddenly saying that the way to do this is to eliminate programs that help ordinary people and give more tax cuts to the wealthy. We tried that formula for eight years, and it did not work, and I don't intend to go back to it."

Yeah, I think that one sentence, "But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got," needs to be in there. It seems to be an important part of his argument.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

TEA an acronym?

I heard on a radio program Tea also has an acronym, forgot what they said. Tax E...? America? --Flightsoffancy (talk) 21:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's Taxed Enough Already.Malke2010 22:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

T-E-A is already in the lead of Tea Party protests. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Media Section

Given the actual Tea Party Movement content vis-a-vis the "Media" section, I think it's time the Media section got pared down. Let's examine each item here and just keep the most salient elements and delete the rest. It is clearly against WP:UNDUE.

It might be helpful to first agree to what is salient and what is not. I would welcome comments here on what the rest of you think would sum up the media input best. Thanks. Malke2010 22:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I dislike removing any well-sourced material. How about moving the Media content to a sub-article ("Media responses to the Tea Party movement"?) and substituting a one or two paragraph summary? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, agree. That would be the better thing to do. It certainly has enough material there to get started as a sub-article and it can grow on it's own without overwhelming this article. Good idea as always Roy :)Malke2010 03:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think that the problem is necessarily about reducing or moving material. I think the problem is that there are two separate topics attempting to be covered by "Responses>Media". One is the response of the media to the movement. But the other is about the movement's response to the media, if you will... it's about the controversy surrounding the role of Fox News and talk radio in fueling the movement and organizing protests.

This information is also worthwhile, but it is not really about the "Media Response". Therefore, I would propose creating a new section for this material (which is about 2/3rds of the section). This will greatly reduce the size of the "Responses>Media" section and will give us the ability to fine-tune/shape/condense each of the two resultant sections much more effectively --Izauze (talk) 05:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

But the size is the problem. It's totally WP:UNDUE. This Movement isn't about Fox news and Rachel Maddow, etc. And it overwhelms the reader. The detail is confusing. I avoid it now, but when I first looked up Tea Party Movement, the media section and the astroturfing make it look like it's a mud fight between Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann with inappropriate sexual comments by Anderson Cooper. RoyGoldsmith has a good idea, I think, that preserves the edits and yet gives this page some breathing room.Malke2010 06:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I know you've long stated your opinion that Fox News has nothing to do with the TPM and that you think others are just trying to cynically capitalize off of a 100% grassroots movement, but we can't make your opinions the basis of our edits. Plenty of sources have discussed Fox News' role in this (along with talk radio), and that controversy must be reflected in this article. (After all, how can we ignore the role of Glenn Beck in calling for the 9/12 protests - the largest conservative protest ever in washington?) And IMO, this controversy has to be separated from "Responses>Media", and THAT will make the size of this section more manageable. Raygoldsmith's suggestion was in relation to your complaint about the size of the section, but perhaps it is instead the content of the section that we should be looking at. --Izauze (talk) 16:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I've never said that. I said that you can't say they were promoters. They have not sponsored events, etc., like FreedomWorks, etc. And I don't think they could do that legally anyway, even if they wanted to. The only thing these outlets can legally sponsor is polls and that's why they all put out polls every week.

I think you are reading into things. My point here is that the news media's actions in all of this should not dominate. And all the detail, all the back and forth, this one said that, and then this one said another thing, is not necessary. And I've made very clear that I think the news media are just selling product and they have the means through the television and the radio and the newspaper outlets but especially the television, to put over their shows as the ones to watch because they've got all the latest. And they appeal to nuts on both sides of the wing. At the end of the day, they're all salesmen. That's how they make a living.Malke2010 19:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if I misread you. Here is what I did: I greatly reduced the section about Responses by the Media by moving out the material that seemed miscategorized. This was principally stuff about the controversy of Fox News acting as promoters. I just gave that its own section. I tried to shape and contextualize that material, but it is more of a starting point than anything and may need some additional work. There are things that could have been removed due to UNDUE, but I left it all in so others could make those decisions and remove or move material as they see fit. Nonetheless, I believe the Fox material reads much better now and has more focus than it did before. The Media section however is still kinda scattered as I did not shape it at all, but is of a much more manageable size now. --Izauze (talk) 03:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Izauze, you have placed all of the Fox News text in the article under History. I do not believe it belongs there (except that everything is history). Because Fox News is a media organization, I believe it belongs in a subsubsection under Responses>Media.

I was entering the following comments at the same time you were making your changes. I present them now. When I say "now" below, I mean the state the article was in before you made your changes. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 04:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

There are 11 paragraphs/stories right now in Responses>Media:

1. "According to US News...". Fox News explicitly mentioned.
2. "The protests have been derided...". Fox News not explicitly mentioned.
3. "Media Matters for America...". Fox News explicitly mentioned.
4. "At an April 15 protest...". Fox News explicitly mentioned.
5. "Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly...". Fox News explicitly mentioned.
6. "On April 12, Howard Kurtz said...". Fox News explicitly mentioned.
7. "CNBC news editor Rick Santelli said...". Fox News not explicitly mentioned.
8. "On April 19, 2009, Senior White House Advisor...". Fox News not explicitly mentioned.
9. "In January 2010, New York Times...". Fox News not explicitly mentioned.
10. "Following the election of Scott Brown...". Fox News not explicitly mentioned.
11. "In February 2010, Marvel Comics...". Fox News not explicitly mentioned.

Five out of eleven (almost half) mentioned Fox News. All five are about how Fox covers the Tea Party movement. The eighth paragraph is misplaced; it should be under Responses>Politics. Of the other five, three are descriptions about the Tea Party movement itself. One is a long list of people who support and don't support Tea Parties and one is about the Marvel Comics controversy. Except for that long list (which appears fairly evenhanded), none of the other material in Responses>Media has anything to say about how news organizations, other than Fox (and Marvel), cover the TPm.

In my opinion, the Media section should begin with the three paragraphs (numbers 7, 9 and 10) that describe the Tea Party itself. Then the long list (paragraph #2) should start off a subsection at the bottom of Responses>Media called something like "Allegations of bias in the media". The five paragraphs about Fox should go into a 4th-level subsection: Responses>Media>Allegations of bias in the media>Fox News controversy. The Marvel paragraph should go into its own subsection: Responses>Media>Allegations of bias in the media>Marvel Comics controversy.

In this way, if some other sources claim they have found bias, we can have another subsubsubsection called Allegations of bias in the media>NY Times controversy or whatever. If there are allegations about (say) a particular CNN Poll, we can have a subsection on Responses>Public opinion polls>Allegations of bias>CNN Poll controversy. Etc.

This is a diagram of what I imagine the Media subsection should look like when we are done:

==Responses==

===Politics===

:

On April 19, 2009, Senior White House Advisor...

:

===Media===

CNBC news editor Rick Santelli said...

In January 2010, New York Times...

Following the election of Scott Brown...

====Allegations of bias in the media====

The protests have been derided...

=====Fox News controversy=====

According to US News...

Media Matters for America...

At an April 15 protest...

Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly...

On April 12, Howard Kurtz said...

=====Marvel Comics controversy=====

In February 2010, Marvel Comics...

:

I would then start trying to find non-allegation references about the ongoing Tea Party movement as a whole and begin adding summaries of them in the main subsection Response>Media. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 04:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know some might find it a little misplaced, but it was my attempt to make it fit somewhere. Personally, I really don't think it is better placed by categorizing it in some sub-sub-section under "Responses", because it's not a response to the tea party movement (as all the other subsections are), it is about whether Fox helped create the tea party movement. Because of it's role in fanning those flames, I thought it might fit best in the history category in some way, helping us to understand the elements that helped form and motivate the movement. I could also see an argument for a subsection within astroturfing. Or that it even deserves its own section. I just don't think responses is the right place for it. When I made the edit I added this note:

!-- Created this new section for material related to Fox News' role in fueling the movement, as it was miscategorized in a section about responses to the movement by the media. Since the controversey is largely about how much Fox is involved in the growth of the movement, I thought "History" was an appropriate section, but if others feel it is better organized elsewhere, that's fine. Almost everything in here is material previously in the media response section. I reordered, contextualized and shaped some of the material, mostly using additional material from other tea party related articles. It may need to be edited and shaped additionally, but I think it's better than it was before. --

Additionally, I was on pretty much the same page as you about #8, but moved it under response>Obama, since I felt it worked as a sort of combined white house response, but response>politics would be serviceable too. --Izauze (talk) 06:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

What about creating a new section named "Controversy" or something to that effect, and put the astroturfing thing in there, the fox news thing in there, and anything else that might fit like subsections about allegations of racist elements within the movement and such? Just a thought. --Izauze (talk) 06:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Izauze, I didn't realize that Fox News has become such a lightening rod in all of this, for lack of a better phrase. It seems the thing with them is that they claimed they were the only news program covering these protests, and giving the viewers all the facts that they said were being suppressed at other news shows. But then of course, they all started in on it because it gave them ratings and higher ad prices. Anyway, you know how I feel about the media being salesmen. I'd like to mention that, if possible.Malke2010 06:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The first sentence, "Where many have pointed out the role of Fox News and its hosts in supporting and assisting the tea party protests, going even so far as to suggest that the movement was essentially created by Fox, others complain that the other news outlets simply ignored the movement at first.515253" is not supported by the citations given.

On the other hand, "Many have pointed out the Fox News Channel cable network supported and promoted the tea party protests, going even so far as to suggest that the movement was essentially created by Fox." is.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

I just reverted an edit by an IP. When I first looked at it, I thought someone had taken an article from USA Today and refactored an opinion piece and my edit summary shows that. Then I realized too late after I hit the return button, that it was simple vandalism. I put the diff on an admin's page. I'm hoping we can get the page semi-protected. Also, try not to laugh too hard when you check out my edit summary. LOL. Malke2010 03:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Page is Semi-Protected

Good news, admin Gwen Gale has semi-protected the page for now.Malke2010 12:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Crossing the Pond

May be worth mentioning that the Tea party movement is starting to be copied in the UK as well; http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100027366/british-tea-party-movement-to-launch-on-saturday/ - JVG (talk) 17:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Thank you for the link.Malke2010 20:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Significance of first paragraphs under The Protests

What do the first two paragraphs under The protests (beginning with "On January 27" and "On February 10") have to do with the Tea Party movement (or the Tea Party protests)? They seem to be simply two of perhaps dozens or hundreds of criticisms leveled at the stimulis bill in that period. Both were inserted into the article by an anonymous editor on April 24, 2009 (when everything was under the name Tea Party protests). What is the significance of these in relation to the Tea Party movement? Can anyone tell me why they shouldn't be removed forthwith? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The narrative I see presented in Paragraphs 1, 3, and 4 (I have no idea what the point of P2 is) is that Limbaugh responded to the stimulus package and called it a porkulus package. 2 weeks later a seattle blogger took this phrase and called for a porkulus protest. This is purportedly significant because some call that the first tea party protest (though I don't see a significant source for WHO calls it that). A week later after the stimulus bill had been signed, a guy on CNBC business network complained and suggested the need for a new tea party. Within hours websites were springing up in reaction to that call, and thus the tea party was born.

If we can't find any kind of source that says that somebody refered to the Limbaugh criticism the first tea party protest, I suggest that we get rid of the entire paragraph as not germane. The original posting of Mary Rakovich's protest in April 2009 said that "This was the first known protest against the "stimulus" bill in the country" but it was apparently shot down for lack of a citation. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I really don't know how much, if any of this, creates an accurate picture of how the movement was born and began to take off, but that's how these paragraphs read to me. IF it is accurate and verifiable, I think we can shape the material better and present it as being in regards to the genesis of the protests rather than being under the banner of just "The Protests". If this is not an accurate picture, we may need to start over. These events only seem significant to the degree that they are attributed to starting the movement. Thus any element within these 4 paragraphs that can not do that should be moved or eliminated, IMO. --Izauze (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Izauze sums it up well there. Apparently, Keli Carender (not sure if that's correct) is the Seattle housewife who already had a blog and with the passage of the stimulus bill and the news of what it contained, etc., and it may have also been the AIG bonuses, got mad and wrote on her blog and her readers started tweeting and emailing. And then the CNBC guy said something on air, and it just reached a tipping point. So, maybe it could just be summed up like that with cites and all the rest of it eliminated.

I'll throw in with whatever the majority decide.Malke2010 06:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

If someone can find an outside consensus of reliable sources that says that the stimulus (and only the stimulus) originally gave birth to the Tea Party movement then I would say leave the two paragraphs in. Otherwise, unless we can find something about "tea party" in one of the individual sources, I would say throw 'em both out.

I'm going to change "The protests" heading to "Origins" and insert a warning at the top of the subsection. Malke, if you want to try "summing up" the first two paragraphs (possibly combining them with paragraphs 3 and 4) using verifiable sources, we'll wait. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC;)

Okay, I'll work on it. I'll have something by the weekend. Really busy in real life today.Malke2010 17:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's RS that provides the linkage sought by RoyGoldsmith for paragraphs 1,3 and 4. Paragraph 2, the one about the FreedomWorks-organized protest in Ft. Myers, is RS linked to the Tea Party protests here.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll add in the references.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone, did you look at the Obama speech edit?Malke2010 19:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I did. I'm worried that excising his comment specifically identifying the "Recovery Act" might muddy things a bit, however. I'll have to take another look. Agreed that the McCaskill comment was unnecessary. I'll give it a whack in a few and post it at talk before I do anything else.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought I included that. I thought I put posted it just as I had it here on the talk page. Maybe I made a mistake.Malke2010 23:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

On the basis of this discussion, I did some research this weekend to try and make some sense out of this messy "origins" section. I think I've found some stuff that actually will completely change not only the history that is presented here, but in the popular media as well. I'll try and type something up tonight and post it for evaluation. --Izauze (talk) 21:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, looking forward to it.Malke2010 22:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, turns out finding the info is one thing, compiling/sourcing/formatting it all is a decent sized task. If I have spare time I'll try getting it up tomorrow. --Izauze (talk) 07:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Can we start off with a look at the WP:RS cites? We can get to editing the present content later.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, if RoyGoldsmith wouldn't weighing back in, that would be helpful. I see his WP:VERIFY, WP:NOT and WP:TOPIC concerns substantially resolved at this point and advocate removing the Importance tag.--Happysomeone (talk) 21:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone, the Obama speech edit is reading much better now. Good. Malke2010 21:45, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Who said anything at all about WP:VERIFY or WP:NOT? But what about WP:TOPIC? The article is supposed to be about the Tea Party movement. I don't think it matters how many RS's you find if you can't justify by those RS's the relevance of the first, second and even third paragraphs in the Origins section to the Tea Party movement.

First, according to the article, the words "Tea Party" weren't used before Santelli. Now I did find and insert a new citation over the weekend (Zernike, Feb 27, 2010) that finally reported over a year later that the "leaders of the Tea Party movement credit her [Carender] with being the first" so I guess that justifies P3. But the same Zernike story [11] says that "Ms. Carender decided to hold a protest against what she called the porkulus.”

The Zernike story doesn't even mention Limbaugh, although I agree that reliable references have named him as also using the term porkulus. But unless you find a reference that says that the porkulus mentioned by Carender relates in some way to the porkulus used by Limbaugh in his Jan 27th comment then we can't use the first paragraph because we don't have a reliable source relating the Limbaugh comment to the Tea Party movement.

(We are not reporters. We can not presume that the porkulus used in one context is the same as the porkulus used in a different context, as they can -- see WP:SYN. We have to find a reference that says they're related. In effect, we have to dumb down our intelligence and make pretend that we only know (or really, only report in Wikipedia) stuff that is reported in other sources and nothing else.)

As for the second paragraph, I don't see what it's doing in the article in the first place! It doesn't mention either Tea Party or porkulus. Since we can't assume that porkulus is the same in different contexts (see my paragragh just above), we certainly can't assume that porkulus equals a pig on a protest sign. Is there any other justification to P2? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 01:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Please direct your attention to my previous comment that you may not have seen above, which I will reproduce here: "Here's RS that provides the linkage sought by RoyGoldsmith for paragraphs 1,3 and 4. Paragraph 2, the one about the FreedomWorks-organized protest in Ft. Myers, is RS linked to the Tea Party protests here" I believe this amply provided you the significance and relevance of the material that was there to the Tea Party movement.

I reference WP:NOT and WP:TOPIC because that is what the Importance tag placed there was asking for. In regards to WP:VERIFY, you said "If we can't find any kind of source that says that somebody refered to the Limbaugh criticism the first tea party protest, I suggest that we get rid of the entire paragraph as not germane." Well, I believe the previous information satisfied that request as well.--Happysomeone (talk) 17:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

the big Origins edit

So I took a big stab at it...

Let me say first of all that I now know way more about the tea party than I ever wanted to know (and this represents only a small section of what was important and sourceable). Secondly, let me say that this is by far the biggest contribution i've ever tried to make to wikipedia. So as a less-experienced editor, I fully expect a barrage of edits, reformatting, citation requests and punctuation fixes. That's fine, I hope others can make this better. Also, I know it's pretty big. It was what I had to go through to make the origin story make sense to me. Like Raygoldsmith, I really did not get how porkulus and such tied into this all until I did this. Also, because of its size I would understand if anyone requested to eventually split and synopsize it.

I definitely tried to be as neutral as possible and as well-documented as I could. I refamiliarized myself with wikpedia's verification and sourcing articles for guidance. Being less experienced here, I'm not familiar if you have some sort of tool to do all that "date accessed" stuff in the citations, but if anyone wants to clean up or expand the info in some of these references, all the better.

I am pretty confident of the facts I present. If any of this material might be better supported to meet wikipedia's verification standards, just let me know and I'll be happy to share where my info came from and see if we can make it work. --Izauze (talk) 07:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Bypassing the format of the citations (which I'll fix later; see Template:Cite Web if you want to try it yourself), I'm going to start with the second paragraph. You say "the modern Tea Party movement may be able to be traced back to a single message board post". You then give this reference to cite that the message had actually been posted.

My question is: what reference do you cite that the modern Tea Party movement may be able to be traced back to this specific message? In my opinion, it is not enough to claim that this is the first occurrence of tea bags that you have been able to find. If someone else claimed that this was the first occurrence and you could cite him, that would be fine. (Even if your reference was wrong; the first sentence in WP:VER says "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth".)

It's not that this message is the first that you could find (and someone else may always find an earlier one) but, unless I'm wrong, you have not provided a citation. Someone else (not a Wikipedia editor) may be mistaken in saying that this is the first but we deal with that all the time by providing references. Then it's on the shoulders of whoever made the reference and not us. Of course, if you think that your reference is not only wrong but is also pushing some non-neutral point of view, well, then that is another reason why you might reject the source. But, if you don't have the source to begin with, the NPOV discussion is moot.

I also feel that the phrase "may be able to be traced..." is sort of weaselly. Wouldn't it be better, if you have the citation, to say something like "it has been reported<ref>...</ref> that the modern Tea Party movement may be traced back to...".

I have only checked out the citations for the second paragraph. Do the following paragraphs follow the same line of reasoning? (I did make a small change in the "Porkulus" protests section: I reversed the appearance of Carender and Limbaugh, to make them occur in date order.) Do you even agree with reasoning I stated in the paragraphs above? Talk to me. By the way, my name is Roy, not Ray. :) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I've just reviewed your rewrite of Origins section more extensively. In broad, I think your changes are fantastic. I'll start inserting citation-needed tags and fixing the reference format when this discussion has died down. But kudos to you for an excellent first big contribution. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Where is Keri Carender and the blogs of everyday people? I've added mention of the mortgage foreclosures which is the real reason ordinary people left their homes and took off work to show up and protest. They were caught in mortgages that were ruining their credit and making them homeless. That's how all of this got started. This needs to be mentioned.Malke2010 16:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

@Roygoldsmith... (sorry for screwing up the name :P) re: my cite for saying "might be able to trace back to a single message board post" was the huffington post tea party timeline. if we dont think that is significant enough, we can take it out...looks like someone already has. I agree with "has been reported" instead of "may be", if there is support for that via the HP entry. thanks for the kudos :)'

@Malke: Carender is in there prominently. I mentioned how things spread across blogs and such, but never found need to cite them. If u have something that u think is significant, let us know --65.25.161.137 (talk) 17:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, saw that. But Keri Carender's efforts actually made the first Tea Party which came about a week after her Porkulus Party. So I moved her to the opening of the origins.Malke2010 17:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, yes, kudos on finding all this stuff and organizing it.Malke2010 17:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, man. I'll take a gander at the changes - I just want to be sure everyting is easy to follow chronologically, so the order might need to be preserved. -Izauze (talk) 17:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot of edits. Hard to even wrap my head around where each one is. I think there's some helpful additions and streamlining in there. I also think there are parts that just get a lot more confused (such as moving pieces out of chronological order) and some valid and sourced material seems missing. There are parts that need to be reverted and then if necessary can be discussed here, I suppose. Hopefully some other editors show up, since this is such a big job. --Izauze (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, my. I think an important issue that needs to be discussed first is what is reaching the WP:RS and WP:SOURCES threshold and how we treat than information in a certain order. For example, much of the new information is referenced from Web forums. Is this verifiable? Using this sort of cite also opens the door to similar Web forum information that has been added and removed that credits Ron Paul's campaign with starting the Tea Party movement. The other problem here is using partisan blogs as primary sources, such as Michelle Malkin's blog, and properly attributing their influence. For example, the Zernike's story explained that Carender contacted a number of influential conservative voices and blogs and tried with mixed success to market her Feb. 16 event. Malkin was the exception, embracing the Seattle protest and posting several times about it. Might want to re-write the way it presently reads to explain that.

Happysomeone: Obviously there are difficulties sourcing a small non-mainstream phenomenon that did not get a lot of direct and immediate attention in mainstream media sources, but in including the February 1st protest to mail tea bags, I felt using this material as a source only on itself was justified . I agree with your proposed changes regarding Carender and Malkin. --Izauze (talk) 19:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, the title "February 2009 Tea Party" doesn't make much sense as there was no actual "Tea Party" held, just mentions of it here and there.--Happysomeone (talk) 18:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Happysomeone, I thought that too. But apparently, the second protest held by Keri Carender is claimed as the first Tea Party and it was Feb 27, 2009. Also, this article is a good one about her. [12]Malke2010 18:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone: the title is "February 1st Tea Party" to reflect the protest to mail tea bags to politicians on february 1st (in which they referred to it as a "tea party"). Could clarity be improved through a name change like "February 1st tea party PROTEST"? or something along those lines?--Izauze (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Malke: I tried to make a few changes to preserve material and make it more neutral. The biggest change is that I took out your material related Carender because it was miscategorized under the february 1st event. If you think the additional material is significant enough, you could try incorporating it into the section about the early porkulus protests or the section on the february 27th protests. --Izauze (talk) 18:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it is accurate to delete her efforts from the first Tea Party. She is credited with that. And the first one is claimed to be her second protest. And I don't think there should be a separate section for "Porkulus." This is the origins of the Tea Party. So Keri Carender needs to be prominent.Malke2010 19:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You also removed the New York Times article which help explains the origins of the Tea Party. I protest this edit and the separate section on Porkulus. This isolates Carender and that is just plain wrong. What these finance guys did sitting around emailing each other is not at all the true genesis of this movement. This is undue weight to minor participants.Malke2010 19:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

also, mailing tea bags on February 1st is not a tea party. And giving it a heading as such makes no sense. The Tea Party is the protest gathering of ordinary citizens called together in Seattle by the efforts of Keri Carender.Malke2010 19:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

A solution would be to have a small paragraph with a title that mentions the first use of tea bags. But it should not be represented as a tea party. And mention of the mortgage crisis should not be deleted.Malke2010 19:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The Mortgage crisis belonged in the background section. It currently reads: "The theme of the Boston Tea Party, an iconic event of American history, has long been used by anti-tax protesters with libertarian and conservative viewpoints.[18][19][20] It was part of Tax Day protests held throughout the 1990s and earlier.[21][22][23][24] The libertarian theme of the "tea party" protest was previously used by Republican Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters as a fundraising event during the primaries of the 2008 presidential campaign to emphasize Paul's fiscal conservatism, which they later claimed laid the groundwork for the modern-day Tea Party movement.[25][26][27] As home mortgage foreclosures rapidly increased, and details of the 2009 stimulus bill became known, including the provision for the AIG executive bonuses, organized protests began to emerge.[28" NYT cite removed? It's still there.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

So the edits are coming thick and fast. What do you think of the latest shift, separating the "first" claim from the tea bag origins section?--Happysomeone (talk) 19:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

yeah theyre too fast for me to keep up with :P I like combining the porkulus and first tea party claims. --Izauze (talk) 19:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, Malke, I disagree with putting the Carender "first" claim before mentioning there is a competing WP:RS claim. After the competing claims mention, the Rakovich mention comes first based on chronology. Then the Carendar protest. This is the logical progression of encyclopedic writing, insofar as I understand it.--Happysomeone (talk) 19:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone, I'm laughing because I keep passing you in these edits. I think Carender needs to go first and then these other because the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly are claiming she was first and then with the competing claims it follows from there. Also, Izauze good work on the tea bag origins, I didn't mean for it to seem that I don't like them. I just don't want an actual protester to get buried here. It is also a populist movement as we all know after all that consensus.Malke2010 20:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Malke, I find this a little irritating because I feel like we are talking past each other on this specific point. To whit: the two cites, the NYT and the Atlantic, make subtly different claims in "who is first". The NYT story says "But leaders of the Tea Party movement credit her with being the first." No leader is ID'ed here, so we take the reporter's word for it. The Atlantic says: "one of the first". Not "THE FIRST".--Happysomeone (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Happysomeone, please don't simply revert. You wipe out all my work. My section on Keri Carender is well sourced and adds to the competing claims that follow.Malke2010 20:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's difficult (understandably) trying to get your attention. Let's slow down and discuss.--Happysomeone (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The edit I have with Keri Carender and also the addition of the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly supporting Carender as the first tea party are fine where I have them. In fact, the use of tea bags should come last in all of this. You can dispute that she is the first but that doesn't mean she should get buried here. And also, her quote is the first quote from an actual protester.Malke2010 20:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

NO, no, no. Read the cites. Then take a look at the PBP story on Rakovich, which quotes a Tea Party organizer saying: "It was actually the first protest of President Obama's administration that we know of. It was the first protest of what became the tea party movement.--Happysomeone (talk) 20:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, remember that bolding something is screaming and also put the comments in order. We can arrange things in a chonological order if you like, but I would like the paragraphs I edited on Carender added back.Malke2010 20:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Fox>Problem sentence?

Had this sentence removed from the Fox News section. Said I would bring it up here in case someone has an issue with the way it is worded. It is meant to provide context to the next few paragraphs which contain fox critiques.

As the protests grew, other media outlets as well as media watchdog groups began calling attention to or criticizing Fox's role in the movement. Eric Burns, president of Media Matters for America, a self-described progressive media watchdog organization, wrote an open letter to Fox News Sunday host...

Any objections to leaving it in as is? --Izauze (talk) 07:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the whole section is too long to begin with. What is the importance of these various comments? If Media Matters had some regulatory function and they had ruled that Fox News had violated an FCC rule, etc., then all these comments would be relevant. But just because someone doesn't like the fact that Fox News provided coverage when the other cable news outlets and the network news did not, is not really that important. This whole thing can be summarized in one paragraph. Media Matters is just another organization with it's own agenda. What they think of something doesn't really matter. Only if Fox News had broken the law in providing coverage would any of this be relevant. And by giving such undue weight to this, it makes it appear that Fox News has done something illegal and therefore all these pseudo organizations that claim some self-importance appear to be rising up against them. As if what Media Matters thinks is important anyway. There's no story here. And as I said before, this is about selling product. Notice how none of them are really covering the Tea Party Movement. There's no quote from Mary in St. Louis who just lost her home. Or a quote from Jorge in California talking about losing his job, etc. The media ruckus is not about the Tea Party Movement. It's about selling advertising to pay for the salaries, etc.Malke2010 14:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

And I removed that sentence because it is original research and it claims again, incorrectly, that Fox News has a role here. They are providing coverage at heavy levels to jack up ratings.Malke2010 14:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It's better not to isolate sections into a "Controversy Section." I added a tag because in any event, now that it's there, the material is questionable POV. Also, I restored the edit I made that opens the section on Fox News. Calling it "Fox New's Role" is not neutral. Neither is it neutral to delete the fact that Bill O'Reilly and several Fox News commentators mentioned the lack of coverage on ABC, NBC, CBS and MSNBC. It is POV pushing to isolate Fox this way and then pile on with the Media Matters type groups as if they have some critical role here. Fox News believes this is a major event in American history and the other outlets believe it is white people complaining about a black president. That's just not true. It's not about Obama. It's about the economy and Obama didn't make the mess. Congress did. And from what I'm reading, that is what these protesters are complaining about. The economic meltdown occurred before Obama got elected.

There is nothing in these sections that criticizes MSNBC especially for not providing coverage and for whipping up the notion that this is somehow about the election of the first black president. It is not. The more I've been reading about that, it's clear this is not about that at all. I think the focus needs to be back on Wikipedia and presenting a balanced article on the Tea Party Movement, and not on trying to make this movement out to be something it is not. This is not a WP:SOAP.Malke2010 14:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I see a lot of opinion being presented up there. In regards to this instance, I think you are using NPOV too heavily in support of your own above stated opinions. There is a controversey - it has gotten significant coverage. Mentioning that a controversey exists is not pov pushing. Some of the material was taken from the article Fox News controveries. And the section was called Fox's role, because that is what the controversey is regarding - and that is well-established via the selected sources. And just like the astroturfing section, laws don't have to be broken to be significant. I think your application of NPOV to erase anything that might reflect negatively on Fox is what is not NPOV at this point.

(and btw, it wasn't me who deleted the mentions of ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC)

Can we can get anyone else to jump in on this and offer their thoughts? --65.25.161.137 (talk) 16:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The point is, it's not the whole controversy. MSNBC is as much pushing their own view that the Tea Parties are merely protests against President Obama. That's controversial too, but the presentation in the article makes it appear that only Fox is being controversial. And the weight here is undue. MSNBC et al are being presented as if they have some morally correct outrage that Fox is covering these events. You can mention Fox but you also have to mention what MSNBC is doing as well. And at the end of the day, it can still be reduced to a paragraph. It doesn't need to overwhelm the article. If you believe this needs to be expounded on, then a second article just covering this would be fine. But in the overall Tea Party Movement it's small. And also, there needs to be a section explaining the mortgage crisis and the other aspects of the financial meltdown. That is what people are protesting. And the focus needs to be on that and not on the media. And it's not POV pushing to point out POV pushing. WP:AGF.Malke2010 17:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there IS verifiable material out there that outlines some controversey regarding some of the coverage of various news outlets. Fox's controversey is a bit different just because it is not just about how they responded to it, but about how participated in it. If you can find some sources you could add material to the responses>media section or create a new section if the coverage was significant enough.

It may be your opinion that the Fox News story is small, but the amount of verifiable coverage this story has gotten is significant

And if you think that material regarding the significance of stuff like mortage crisis is missing, find sources, be bold, and add it.  :)

--Izauze (talk) 17:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

There's no more controversy over Fox than over any other outlet. It just seems like it because of the piling on and the lack of pointing out what the others are doing. Putting up Fox's name in it's own section is also adding to the impression that it's all about Fox. It's not. It's all about the media. Which comes down to advertising and ratings. And regarding the mortgages, that's the major reason people started protesting. They were losing their homes and nobody was helping them.Malke2010 18:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)