Talk:Welfare queen

Still badly sourced

The vast bulk of this article is an op/ed about Reagan's use of the term "welfare queen" which rests entirely on a citation to a CNN piece which, while it uses the term "welfare queen" itself 28 times, only includes one actual quote from Reagan, in which the phrase does not appear. The fact is that Ronald Reagan only used the term "welfare queen" in public once in his lifetime, in 1981, when he was already president. The idea that he "popularized" the term or that his 1976 or 1980 campaigns were built around bashing "welfare queens" is totally false, and any actual application of Wikipedia's citation policy will show that, because there is simply no occasion from when he was running for office on which Reagan ever used the phrase, and thus no cite possible showing that he did. Predestiprestidigitation (talk) 20:33, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Apparently it is permanently forbidden to correct this information because CNN op/eds are a "reliable source." The fact that the one that the entire (false) premise of the article rests on is buult around a very easily disprovable false assertion does not in any way affect its "reliability" - if CNN asserts something false that actually wills it into being true, since CNN is "reliable," and we know it's reliable because everything they say is true because it's "reliable"... Predestiprestidigitation (talk) 22:39, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, opinion pieces can be freely challenged, as they constitute, well, opinion, which isn't reliable/factual to any particular degree. However, I see only two cites referencing CNN, but 57 cites to other sources. So while you can argue that much of the article is built around a particular assertion, you'd have to show why the 57 other cites are regurgitating that specific CNN article. I don't have the time to poke at it myself unfortunately. It does appear that the article has become bloated with ancillary arguments - that don't even mention the term - in order to dispute the validity of the term. The article is far too long for the notability of the term. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 00:08, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

There's two major issues here:

1) the entire article conflates the general term/stereotype "welfare queen," with references to Linda Taylor specifically, and both with the general concept of opposition to "welfare" (defined as...anything someone opposing it opposed). there are numerous examples in which a citation to someone criticizing something that someone deems "welfare" is presented as proof that they used the term "welfare queen" or talked about Linda Taylor. all of these different ideas need to be better extricated from one another.

2) the article asserts that ronald reagan repeatedly used and popularized the term "welfare queen" in 1976 (or, according to a lesser number of equally baseless citations, in 1980). this is simply false. anyone can search the publicly available archives of reagan's speeches and see that the only time he ever used the term was in 1981 - one time, while he was already president. it's also the case that every year's budget signed during the 8 years of the reagan administration increased welfare spending.

There needs to be some path to eliminate the very simple false assertion in #2 that doesn't lead to the attempt immediately being reverted because one CNN editorialist wrote a "forever reliable" piece containing the falsehood. There's no chance of dealing with the larger conceptual confusion in the article if we can't even fix basic true-or-false factual assertions. Predestiprestidigitation (talk) 01:54, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

When Reagan mentions "A woman in Chicago..." during the 1976 speech and throughout his campaign, what do your sources say he is referring to? It would be helpful to cite and provide the sources as well. Cheers. DN (talk) 23:14, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Made another attempt at correcting this, but apparently there is a "consensus" that the page should have false information on it. Predestiprestidigitation (talk) 23:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Please stop trying to add WP:OR. You have been asked for sources before and you simply stopped responding. It's not helping your case. DN (talk) 23:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

What possible sources are there for "someone did NOT say something" or "the cited article does NOT support the claim?" Nothing in the WaPo piece that is cited here ever says that Reagan used the term "welfare queen." Also, the previous justification for leaving this in was that CNN is a "reliable source" and therefore an opinion piece written on CNN is sufficient to prove the factual accuracy of any claim contained within that piece - so we're hopping around from one standard to another to defend this bit of falsehood.

I guess I could spend $35 on the cheapest version of the Tom Mould book and read all 384 pages of it to see if it contains any such claim and, if so, any actual citation for it, but I'm guessing that will also not be enough to get this incorrect info deleted from the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Predestiprestidigitation (talk • contribs) 23:37, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

From the WaPo source you seem to be dismissing...

• "It was January 1976. Ronald Reagan was on the campaign trail, hoping to challenge President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. The former California governor took the stage in Asheville, N.C., and started his stump speech.

The federal government was full of waste and abuse, he said, particularly in the public assistance realm. In his folksy style, he listed his alleged examples: People were buying T-bone steaks with food stamps; a housing project in New York City had 11-foot ceilings and a swimming pool. The audience chuckled along.

And then the humdinger: “In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare,” he said."...

I'm not going to bother asking you again who Reagan is talking about in that speech, because it seems obvious.

I politely ask that you stop making unilateral changes in the lead (which you've done twice now - here and here), with no reliable sources to back them up, and expecting them not to be contested. That's not how things work here.

Please take a step back and ask someone at the WP:TEAHOUSE for guidance, or get an admin to straighten this out for you. Your choice. Cheers. DN (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

No one is disputing that Reagan discussed Linda Taylor in his speeches. The false claim is that he used the specific term "welfare queen." The page repeatedly says he "popularized" this term. Your excerpt does not include this phrase at all! Am I speaking Martian or something?

I disagree with any implication that people can add baseless, untrue information to this page, using citations that do not support the claims, and that it is the obligation of those objecting to false claims to somehow find sources which say that something is not true to the satisfaction of a standard that you refuse to articulate. By this standard, you could add the claim that Ronald Reagan was actually a sentient green mushroom, and no one would be allowed to remove it unless they found a source that specifically says "Ronald Reagan was not a sentient green mushroom."

Furthermore, all edits to Wikipedia are made by individual people (e.g. "unilaterally") so the idea that there is some standard against "unilateral changes" is also completely unjustified. Information is supposed to be true and verifiable through citations. Whether the information is added "unilaterally" (which again, is the only way any information can possibly be added to or removed from Wikipedia at all) is not relevant. The claim that Reagan popularized, or regularly used, or used at all in 1976, the term "welfare queen" is not true. It is not verified by the citations you have provided, which do not even claim it. I will absolutely call your bluff on invoking admins and policies here if you want to go that way. Predestiprestidigitation (talk) 00:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)