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I haven't been able to get onto Scouting for All for several days now. Anyone know whats going on? -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Scalise v. Boy Scouts of America, 05-1260. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13047756/from/RSS -- evrik 12:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
This organization discriminates against American citizens, yet they get special access to lands which we ALL pay for. Some of those lands the average person isn't even allowed to visit. If they're private the n they should be treated like any other private organization. End the corruption.
My additions were deleted without explanation. If you think it shouldn't be in the article, come to the talk page to discuss it first.-- Heqwm 03:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
The cite says: "In its legal briefs, it presents itself as a private group with an essentially religious basis that is exempt from discrimination laws, including California's Unruh Act." No, I haven't been able to find a quote specific to Dale, but I do recall seeing this before. And the issue isn't merely whether the BSA is found to be a religious organization, but whether the BSA is consistent in what it claims.-- Heqwm 06:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
If you're going to claim that "the statement doesn't belong in in this paragraph", then you should move it to wherever you think it belongs, rather than deleting it. And I don't understand how it "is not written in proper English". Heqwm 03:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I just reverted a few of GCW's recent edits-- specifically those involving "openly-gay" vs "gay" and those that added "out of a total of". Jagz beat me to the punch on one of those, but I reverted the others. Both these issues are discussed in the talk pages icons, because they're issues we considered in the vetting of this page for FAC, so you can observe the whole consensus building process and full debate on these two issues in the archive, but let me try to summarize.
GCW added the qualified "openly gay" when describing the policy. There is actually a pretty substantial debate about whether non-openly gays men are welcome in BSA. The official policy statement only mentions openly gay men, and it is silent on how non-openly gay men should be treated. This leaves the possibility open that perhaps non-openly gay men are welcome in BSA.
As of now, however, that doesn't seem to be the case, at least not a nation-wide basis. Some troups have mentioned they have "don't ask don't tell", presumably welcoming non-open gays. But there have been many other cases in which non-open gays were expelled. One notable case involved a high-level employee of the National Council who was NOT openly gay but who was fired for homosexuality. there are other less notable cases.
In trying to get to the heart of the matter when writing this article, I contacted BSA and asked them to comment on whether non-openly gay men are welcome, but I didn't receive a response. I in turn contacted webmasters of the leading Pro-policy and Anti-policy advocacy sites and asked them their opinion on the issue-- they both were in agreement that in general, non-openly gay males are not welcome in BSA under the current policy.
So, the long and the short of it is: we have no reliable source specifying that BSA nationals allows non-open gays. We have a number of reliable sources in agreement that non-open gays can be expelled in some circumstances. So, until we have a reliable statement from the BSA officially allowing non-open gays to participate, it's OR to claim that only the openly gay are excluded. Obviously, if BSA makes some statement officially allowing them, all that would change. Until they do, we have only their actions to speak for them, and those actions are clear that in some cases, members can be directly confronted with suspicions of homosexuality and expelled on that basis.
In several other cases, when numbers were cited, GCW added "out of a total of". For example, 100 of the 1,500,000 eagle badges issues have been returned in protest. I reverted these sorts of additions as well, and this issue also came up when we were doing the run up to FAC.
The problem with these sorts of statistics is that they imply everyone NOT in the minority disagrees with the minority's position. So, in the eagle scout badge example, the implication is that the other 1,499,900 eagle scouts support the policy. The truth is, that number is simply undecided, and in general, has not weighed in on either side of the issue. Many are no longer living, and cannot weigh in on one side or the other. Most are probably not involved with Scouting anymore, and don't keep up with the policies. Many other oppose the policies, but simply never considered making the gesture of returning their badges in protest. So, as much as we would like to have a statistic that talks about the former eagle scout position on this, we don't have such a survey, and to list the full number of eagle badges only falsely implies that we do.
Let me give this an example, let's say I'm talking about the 2004 US Presidential Election. Suppose I say this:
This sentence is technically true, and it is technically factual, but it is also misleading and unfair to President Bush. The sentence implies that while only 60 million supported the President, the other 240 million didn't vote for him. This is technically true, but it's totally unfair and misleading. The fact is, most American's don't vote, and the majority of those 300 million were "undecided", not "opposed to Bush". And as we know, Bush was, in fact, the most popular candidate. So to say "60 million out of 300 million total supported Bush" is simply very, very misleading-- even if every word of it happens to be true.
So, that's our reasoning. We gave serious consideration to both these issues, and the consensus was to do things this way for a good reason. So, GCW, I applaud you for having the keen eye to realize that both these issues might be points of interest, or ways the article COULD be different. BUt in general, once an article has reached FAC-- if you think you detect a systemic NPOV problem with the article, there's probably a good reason it's being done that way. But of course-- it never hurts to raise the issue.
-- Alecmconroy 15:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Then by your own argument, the clarifying lead "few" must be included! GCW50 15:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The 100 who did return them is obviously a few of the 1,500,000 awarded, even if you ignore the spurious argument (which I never made) that the remainder actively support the position. I found this bias against proportionality throughout the article, where "many" later referred to something described as "several".
In the real world of Scouting (which I suspect you're not a member of) this is an issue that rarely comes up. GCW50 15:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I see Jagz has put in the compromise wording "several"-- that seems fine to me. I can't really compare 100 out of the 1.5 million since who knows how many of that million are still around, but they give out 40 thousand of these things a year, so 100 or so obviously isn't "a lot" based just on that one. At the same time, it's at least in the triple digits, so a few might not get at the fact that it's a group doing it, not just a couple.
As to the concern that the badges aren't being returned by Eagle Scout-- I think you're taking the "returned badges" a little too literally. I believe, though admittedly perhaps I'm wrong, that you have to submit your name in order to declare your officially "returning" the badge. I don't think they're counting just any old badge that people found somewhere and mailed in. Since our source for the badge returning is notable media and the BSA itself, we don't have any reason to suspect that badges are falsely acquired.
About the 30 percent disapproval-- it was an internal poll conducted by the BSA. It's quoted in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and probably others. But no, I haven't been able to find any details about sample size, etc. BSA would presumably have that info, so you could write them for it. Some of the other webmasters on this issue might know. Of course, I'd predict that over time, that statistic is going to drop towards zero, as those who oppose the policy leave BSA and others who are specifically attracted to the policy join BSA. Since gays, atheists, and some people who publically oppose the policy are being expelled, that right off the bat, that should substantially decrease the numbers within BSA who oppose.
In the real world of Scouting (which I suspect you're not a member of) this is an issue that rarely comes up.
Well, there's a whole cottage industry built up on guessing what ties I do and don't have. In the end, it doesn't matter, but you might be surprised. But about the issue in general-- yeah, I'm aware that within Scouting itself, this really doesn't come up. Scouts don't sit around all take talking about how much they hate gays or atheists-- the focus is on the boys and making a great program for the boys, and it's really not about this. This is a common theme whenever you talk to people in scouting-- most feel like this isn't an issue that comes up a lot at the local level. And I think that's a very valid point. This isn't just a "Scouting issue"-- rather, this is a larger societal debate, of which the BSA are but one part. That's a big part of why this is a separate article, rather than just being a large portion of the main BSA article.
-- Alecmconroy 08:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I just think we can do better than the writing that is currently there. As far as I can tell, the returning of badges was a "one-off" thing that sort of fizzled. It created an urban legend that thousands of Eagle Scouts were doing it in protest right after Dale was decided. The bottom line is that very few (less than 100) were involved, so I would feel uncomfortable including it under the "opposition from within" category, unless we mean that there "wasn't much opposition from within." I like the internal survey idea, but it's too loose to say what it really means without some better sources. Does it really rise to "opposition" or just "mild dissatisfaction"? I think that paragraph really needs some work or should be re-focused. -- NThurston 13:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Just curious - according to statements that Heqwm has made, one would infer that the ACLU does not officially "oppose" the BSA policies per se, rather they view themselves as a legal resource for defending people's rights. This policy has led them to offer their services to groups that you might not expect, such as the KKK. So - is it really accurate to say that the ACLU opposes the policies? Or should we re-word to say that the ACLU has been active in assisting others in cases that challenge BSA policies (not much success there) and cases that challenge prefential treatment of the BSA? -- NThurston 15:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I reverted this edit which did a major restructuring of the article. We should talk about why we want to do this. One problem I see right off the bat is that it introduces two headings together without any interveneing text, which the FAC people look down on. Some of the people listed as former members were active members of BSA at the time they began opposing the policies. But if people feel a restructuring is called for, that's something we can definitely talk about, doing an RFC to get more eyeballs as needed. -- Alecmconroy 17:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the article better without the restructuring. Everything is too divided up now and the article doesn't flow well. -- Jagz 18:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Wholesale reverting is not very helpful in this context (See Help:Revert#Tips). We are all perfectly willing to discuss how to make it better, but at the end of the day, the article is getting better. Reverting is necessarily a step backwards. -- NThurston 19:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me correct a misunderstanding here, because I think you've got things backwards a little, with regard to the
Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle]. No one is saying that the article can't be improved-- it always can. But the way we go about it is that first you make a change. If anyone objects, they go ahead and revert back to the consensus form, and then we all talk about it, and if there's a consensus to re-instate the change, we do so.
If, however, we doing things backwards as you suggest, not only do we do contradict policy, but we cause all kinds of problems. For example, when people come and add GOOD, uncontroversial changes to the page, we have to do a LOT of work to revert just the controversial restructuring. Meanwhile, there's a disputed version of the page live for all our visitors. Wikipedia would work on a Bold-DIscuss-Revert cycle. Anyone could make any changes and the encyclopedia would quickly degrade.
When I have more time, I'll explain in greater detail some of the problems introduced with the restructuring-- I know I've mentioned a few, but I could do a better job of discussing this. In the meantime, I suggest a revert back to the consensus version-- although I won't make that revert myself right now, I think anyone else who opposes the restructuring should feel free to. -- Alecmconroy 20:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Currently, this section is under the heading of "Opposition to Boy Scouts of America's policies." Yet the paragraph does not say anything about active opposition. It merely states that other groups have different membership policies. I don't know if that paragraph even belongs in this article, but assuming it does, I don't think it's in a helpful place. Any suggestions? -- NThurston 21:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I reorganized the article. Is it acceptable like this? (I reverted before the reorganization because with the numerous recent changes it became very difficult to sort out what has changed recently.) -- Jagz 03:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, NT, I'm in a difficult position. On the one hand, I definitely don't want to seem like a bully or being too overbearing, or otherwise be open to the criticism of WP:OWN. But on the other hand-- I don't want to undertake a major reorganization/rewrite without a firm understand of why it's needed.
A lot of people have looked over this article and found its structure acceptable. Jagz wrote the bulk of it, I and many others helped. There were a number of peer reviews, two FACs. A lot of eyeballs have been over this. I didn't find anything wrong with the organizations, neither did Jagz, neither did the peer review or the FAC. What he had here was very much a 'consensus' version-- as much as an article can be.
Now, you think there is something wrong with the organization, so you want to improve it, so you are being bold. That's fine and quite appropriate, and as you mention-- there have been a lot of additions to the article since it hit FAC, and they've been good improvements. But, if ya make an edit, and people don't like it--- there's an impetus on you to convince us BEFORE you change it back. Now, there were many, many changes all done at once-- rewordings, reorganizations, deletions, etc. I was almost impossible to easily follow. I looked it over and found a number of changes I didn't agree with. As of this moment, I haven't yet come to understand why a major reorganization/rewrite is even needed. Jagz also looked it over and didn't like the reorganization, and posted so earlier up on the talk page.
My point of view therefore is that particular Being Bold, while good intentioned, isn't helpful on this case, and we should slow down, discuss, and reach a consensus and talk about why there need to be a rewrite in the first place.
An FA requires a _lot_ of time and effort to go into it, it requires a lot of approval to get where it is, and it carries the special star that implies the current version has been rigorously screened. In short-- major rewrites of a FAC are a lot harder to justifies, and there really isn't much excuse for edit warring AWAY from the the consensus version that has undergone FAC approval. It's not that any of the rewrite jumped out at me as a glaring NPOV violation or blantant POV pushing or any other sort of bad faith. But, given how much does go into a FA-- I would expect people to tread a little bit more lightly than usual, and not to make major article-wide changes without a clear mandate to do so. Major, Controversial changes away from the approved-form of a FA shouldn't be made through edit wars, they should be done through strong consensus, RFC, Mediation, or Arbiatration.
Based on all this-- if it were up to me, I'd just revert the whole thing back to the consensus version that existed before the rewrite, and then slowly, carefully, discuss what needs to be changed about that version, doing an rfc/peer review if needed for more eyeballs, and take it that way. But Jagz has spent some time trying to make a compromise proposal, I don't see too much harm in leaving that up for the time being to see what people think. As of what I've seen and heard so far, I think I like the old version better, but perhaps I just haven't heard the argument for change put to me in the right way. -- Alecmconroy 05:10, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
These are the current thesis statements (by paragraph number):
1. Lawsuits have challenged BSA membership policies, specifically gender, orientation.
2. Lawsuits about gays and atheists have been unsuccessful
3. BSA's right to establish membership has been established through case law
4. Lawsuits about gender have been unsuccessful
5. The focus of lawsuits has shifted toward government relationships.
Issue #1: Having 3 in between 2 & 4 makes no sense. "These rulings" should equally apply to the gender rulings as to the orientation/atheism rulings. Three solutions - A) move 3 before 2 and change the first sentence - "The right of the BSA to set their own membership standards has been firmly established through case law." B) Switch 3 & 4 and modify three to include a reference to gender cases, too. C) Combine the thesis of 3 into 1 - Cases challenging membership policy have resulted in case law indicated that BSA has the right to establish membership.
Issue #2: As cited, the Dale case does not support the thesis statement of 3 directly. It is better used to support the thesis statement of paragraph 2. -- NThurston 14:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Thesis Statements (by number again)
1. BSA's access to governmental resources has become controversial ("and resulted in litigation" needs to be added since this is the main idea of this whole section.)
2. Receiving access on terms more favorable than other private organizations is known as "special" access
3. BSA has special access to A.P. Hill
4. (This one is tough because it is not well written) - Litigation has come up asking the courts to define when a local government a) can and b) has to grant special access to the BSA.
5. The Federal government has responded to litigation by passing new laws.
Main Issue: Paragraph 4 is disjointed and needs a rewrite. The point of that paragraph is NOT clear.
Solution 1 - There are really two points - A) Private individuals and local governments have taken actions (policies and lawsuits) that restrict BSA's special access based on the membership policies. and B) BSA has sued local governments claiming that they cannot discriminate in the granting of special access based on constitutional rights to membership. (This means probably having two paragraphs.)
Solution 2 - Make "Uncertainty about what 'special access versus 'equal access means is the source of current litigation." into a thesis statement -- NThurston 14:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
All of these cases are related to Special Access and should have a more direct link to the Access section. A transition paragraph would do the trick. I also understand that the federal actions (paragraph 5 in Access section) are in reaction to some of "these" cases, so again we have a problem of misplaced antecedents. I recommend moving these paragraphs into the Access section, perhaps as a subsection, and putting them right before 5 (Federal Congressional action). --
NThurston
14:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have some additional problems with the local special access paragraph. First, there's no indication of how wide-spread the local anti-discrimination ordinances are. Second, there's no discussion of what those ordinances mean and who they apply to. Can a city require all private organizations in their jurisdiction to have a non-discrimination policy? Clearly not. So what can they actually do with these ordinances? Do they only apply to special access or are there other ways that cities have tried to push on the BSA? Third, there is a difference between ordinances and operational policies. For example, a nearby mayor recently attempted to create a policy (it was just the mayor's policy, not an ordinance) that would have required all businesses receiving city contract funds to have a non-discrimination policy (among other things). This policy wouldn't affect the BSA in any way, because they don't do contract work for the city. Then, the city council told him to knock it off, and passed an ordinance prohibiting this type of discrimination. (These details may not be the actual facts of any particular case, but highlight the issue.) The paragraph also fails to adequately describe the process of litigation in the most prominent cases: 1) Local government denies special access, 2) BSA sues the local government based on non-discrimination theory. The paragraph mentions that private citizens are suing local governments to restrict special access but this thought is not well connected to the arguments or thesis of the paragraph. -- NThurston 14:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Thesis statements (for the whole section by paragraph number)
1. There has been an increase in oppositon to the BSA's membership policies in recent years
2. Some within Boy Scouts of America are opposed to the membership policies. Issue: The only supporting sentence does not even refer to those within the BSA. Neither of the sources indicate that any current member of the BSA returned their badges. In fact, the cases cited were actually all former members. Compromises: "Some within 'Scouting'" or "Some people who have been affiliated with the BSA"
3. Some local units and councils have unsuccessfully tried to have non-discrimination policies
4. Former Scouts and Scouters have formed organizations that advocate the inclusion of gays and atheists.
Issues:
5. Steven Spielberg resigned his position with the BSA in protest.
6. The Unitarian Universalist Association has vocally opposed the BSA's membership exclusions.
7. Some other religious groups that formerly supported Scouting (?) have withdrawn support and severed their ties.
8. Some private institutions have severed their ties to the BSA as a result of their membership policies resulting in a loss of funding.
9. The BSA forbids its adult members from using their leader status to express political views to the public or to youth members.
10. Dave Rice was a dedicated Scouter who was removed for advocating policy change
11. Not all of the Scouting movement has accepted the need to exclude atheists and/or gays.
Proposed changes:
-- NThurston 14:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
GCW50: What is the point you are trying to make about this? You need to provide citations with statements you add. -- Jagz 16:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The Union for Reform Judadism on it's webpage says that it's up to congregation to decide. Their Social Action committe did say what is listed here, but that's just a committee, not a ruling body. I would strongly urge you to go beyond the edited cites on bsa discrimin ation.org and go to the original source material. GCW50 18:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
How do you cite something so the cites are not duplicated in the References list? -- Jagz 16:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
An example
First Cite: <ref name="impact">{{cite web|url=http://lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/fact.html?record=1325|work= Lambda Legal|title=The Impact of the Boy Scouts of America’s Anti-Gay Discrimination|accessdate=March 2|accessyear=2006}} </ref>
Second Cite: <ref name="impact"/>
-- NThurston 16:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I wrote a tutorial on this. -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
So, I replied to all the proposed changes. One big room for improvement I see expanding the "access to governmental resources" section into a full article, and if anyone wanted to do that, that would be very cool, because as NT correctly points out-- we basically do a very quick rundown, and there is lot more to say about it.
I also definitely can tell that have a sort of awkward organization when it comes to the girls issue, and there might be room for improvement for where we put that girls issue. So, I'd really like to hear feedback on which options people like.
At the same time, I note that some of the recent editors feel that the page has widespread problems of logic and NPOV, and there has been very aggressive editing in that direction. I personally disagree that these problems. If Jagz, Rlevse, and other agree with the edits, I certainly won't be the one to insist. But in general, the page is a very good one, if you disagree, you've should be focusing on convincing, not editing.
Anyway, the edits are so much that I can't keep up, so keep in mind my comments are more on 'general principle' at this time, not so much on the specific edits. In a few days, when the editing has settled down and people feel like they've done what edits they want to do-- I'll go through it and compare that version with the pre-rewrite version, and try to keep the changes that I personnally agree are improvements or which are supported by strong consensus.
Please try too respect the current article and the current balance, and if you feel this article is unbalanced, do an RFC / talk. Trying to change the POV of the article to make a point, won't likely be successful, as Heq. found out. Just on a hunch, I checked the article to see if the much-contested 30%-oppose survey was still in the article, and as I suspected-- it has been removed. I realize some (but not necessarily all) of the new editors very strongly disagree with opposition, but this does not cause such opposition to not exist. :) --- Alecmconroy 05:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
This case has no link in the article. Not sure if it did at one time. Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America -- Jagz 07:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Alec raises an important point - What is this article really about? Is it about membership controversies generally or the current membership controversies(orientation & theism)? Please use this section to help us find consensus.
Comment The article should be about the totality of membership controversies in the BSA. The girls issue is a historical important feature for two reasons - 1) It was the beginning of case law establishing right to association, and 2) The BSA's policy on girls and women has changed significantly over time. Even though they presumably have the right to do otherwise, they now allow women leaders in all positions, and girls to be members of some programs. -- NThurston 14:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the reason so many governmental bodies have reconsidered the terms of BSA's access to their resources in recent years was caused by the enactment of anti-discrimination ordinances or something similar followed by the public attention cast on the BSA by related court decisions. I don't think that most governmental bodies were acting simply to punish or spite the BSA. What do you think? -- Jagz 16:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know of an instance where a government body created a law or rule primarily to punish the BSA? -- Jagz 07:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Please try to refrain from nit-picking edits. Cite your statements. Try to edit without bias. -- Jagz 18:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm just checking in every now and then, but notice there's been a some of 'gutting' of the Opposition section, so I suspect that the current edits are introducing widespread NPOV problems. Please be wary of introducing such problems-- if they exist in a few days when I get around to going through all the changed, I know I may just revert the wherever I see them back to the NPOV FA text. Someone else may do it before me. it just wastes people time when you edit with bia-- it won't actually change the article in the long run -- Alecmconroy 19:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Both occur in the Litigation section
-- NThurston 20:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
So, I finally found the time to go through and sort through the recent edits. There were lot of WikiGnome edits that had been made lately-- replacing duplicate links, fixing capitalization, and other such thigs--- so thanks for those! THe "Support for" and "Opposition for" order was swapped-- it took me a second, but I think it's actually a really good improvment. There were a lot of really good introductory statments that made things a little smoother.
A few of the changes I disagreed with, so I reverted or altered them. Here's the changes I made and why:
One main area of discussion right now is the Access to Government Resoureces section. One way the article could be better is if we moved some of the specific details about the access issue to the Government Resources article. RIght now, this article is hte only place to put that stuff, so we're putting each specific case here. The stuff should be in wikipedia somewhere, but this article probably doesn't need that level of specificity. I tweaked the sentence about "many localities" so that it is more vague about what kinds of laws they have-- it used to be ordinance is, but perhaps that's less accurate sinse ordinances implies only local laws-- not necessarily all the federal and state ones. I also changed "BSA policies are sometimes contrary to these laws" to "may sometimes be contrary", to be as NPOV on the issue as possible.
Another main area of dispute right now is the removal of text from the opposition section. I've addressed most of those above, but in particular, let me object to the removal of the Youth Organizations that don't exclude gays/atheists. The claim was basically made that these organizations don't actually OPPOSE discriminating against gays or atheists, and their non-discriminatory policies don't, in anyway, imply that those organizations oppose such discrimination. Structurally, the text was basically implying that these organizations feel "There's nothing wrong with the BSA's policies at all, there's nothing wrong with discriminations-- we just don't do it". I think this is a very original and unique intepretation of non-discrimination statements. When a government, university, business, or organization says "we do not practice discrimination", I think the logical conclusion is they don't believe in such discrimination-- not that they are cool with it, they just don't feel like doing it themselves.
In any case, that point is moot, because even if you don't think "prohibiting discrimination" necessarily implies "disapproving of discrimination", the fact remains that lots of the organizations (Girl Scouts and 4-H most notably) have explicitly stated their disapproval of the BSA's policy. Opponents also reference these organizations as pieces of evidence in their own argument that counter hte BSA's interpretation of Scouting (and youth-organization) values, so any way you swing it, these organization's prohibition of such discrimnation is a relevant part of the opposition.
-- Alecmconroy 03:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Jagz-- I see that you've re-added part of the material I had deleted. As is usually the case when you revert me, I'm totally okay with it. :). Nothing I said above should prevent us from also discussing the WOSM requirements, as you did in the re-added material-- my objection was just to the complete removal of other youth organizations from the opposition section, not also to the broader discussion that occurs. I might suggest, stylistically, that you integrate that paragraph into the "Scouting Values affecting membership" rather than leave it in-between Opposition and Support. But, just a suggestion. -- Alecmconroy 12:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I have made most of the "minor" revisions of Alec's fine work. However, there is a big problem that needs many eyes - the "other organization" sections. The current two-part format doesn't make any sense. This needs to be just one stand-alone section. Any interest in concensus? -- NThurston 15:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
If you haven't figured it out yet, one of the primary purposes of this website, http://www.bsalegal.org/, is to disseminate biased propaganda. I was involved with this article for several months before it became obvious to me. People for the most part believe what they want to believe. -- Jagz 22:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
By coincidence, I just made some comments on BSALegal over at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-08 BSA##Comments_from_Gadget850_.28_Ed.29. BSALegal presents articles on one of point of view, while Scouting for All, BSA Discrimination and Inclusive Scouting presents articles from a different point of view. All four sites are biased towards a particular agenda. Since BSALegal was registered well after the other sites, I would speculate that it was created at least partly in response to the other sites. -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Here are some discussions on my latest round of changes:
Let me also say something about the referencing. In general dealing when dealing with references (not just on this page, but in general), if a reference link goes dead, don't remove it, because the reference still exists and can be useful to editors and readers who want to know where that information is. Additionally, most websites are stored in various archives (like
here), so they are still accessable to researchers. We should of course look for new references that doesn't have a broken link, but don't delete the reference outright just because the link is dead-- then we won't remeber where we got what from where. Instead, just look for a new ref that says the same thing, adding the Fact tag as needed, and deleting the broken link only when the new references have made the old one superfluous. The situation is analgous to a book going out of print-- if you are writing a paper and you used that book as a source, you should still list it in your bibliography-- but it would be BETTER if you could use a non-out-of-print book instead.
Additionally, if you think a reference isn't sufficient to justify a statment, add a Citation Requested tag, but don't delete the reference. (With an obvious exception in cases where the reference is so unrelated that you think it's a mistake). This will signal to readers that the statement is not, in your eyes, justified by the reference, but they can still see what reference there is for it. It may be that the reference does in fact fully justify the sentence, but you didn't notice it. It may be that the reference partially-- but not completely justifies the sentence.
With regard to this specific issue-- I would't work to hard to find replacement links/archival links for all the Scouting For All references. Their main page says they're just having temporary server trouble.
-- Alecmconroy 02:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Why does the ACLU logo keep getting removed? The only objection raised during the featured article candidate review was its location. It was relocated and the person who commented was satisfied. There were no additional comments. Not being a fan of the ACLU is not a sufficient reason for removing the logo. -- Jagz 02:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Is Winkler v. Rumsfeld just about the issue of federal government funding of national Scout jamborees or does it also consider the issue of the BSA's special access to the Army base, Fort A.P. Hill, the home location of jamborees. -- Jagz 17:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Can this category be removed from the bottom of this page? -- Jagz 18:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
You pointed to one of the main challenges of covering certain aspects of BSA. There are areas (such as the last few topics in this discussion section) where the real understanding (the forest vs. selected trees) is basically a synthesis from thousands of observations over decades. UnWikipedian (OR in a contested area)unless they published their findings elsewhere to cite.
In reality, any writing with any expertise is inherently OR, which cites that cover specific areas. So, where it is allowed (on non-controversial items) the system works. Where it is disallowed (as it must be) on controversial areas, you see a lot of unstable articles with eternal arm wrestling. This seem pervasive on Wikipedia articles covering contentious areas.
Maybe with a plan & consensus amongst the main contributors, this article could do two things that have not been done before .......a good, informative, stable article in a contentious area, and coverage of some of the hard-to-cover, not-covered-well-elsewhere BSA topics.
This would not require agreement on the ares of contention, just agreement on covering the controversy vs. something that is cleverly designed to bolster one or the other side of the controversy.
North8000 ( talk) 17:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
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I haven't been able to get onto Scouting for All for several days now. Anyone know whats going on? -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Scalise v. Boy Scouts of America, 05-1260. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13047756/from/RSS -- evrik 12:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
This organization discriminates against American citizens, yet they get special access to lands which we ALL pay for. Some of those lands the average person isn't even allowed to visit. If they're private the n they should be treated like any other private organization. End the corruption.
My additions were deleted without explanation. If you think it shouldn't be in the article, come to the talk page to discuss it first.-- Heqwm 03:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
The cite says: "In its legal briefs, it presents itself as a private group with an essentially religious basis that is exempt from discrimination laws, including California's Unruh Act." No, I haven't been able to find a quote specific to Dale, but I do recall seeing this before. And the issue isn't merely whether the BSA is found to be a religious organization, but whether the BSA is consistent in what it claims.-- Heqwm 06:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
If you're going to claim that "the statement doesn't belong in in this paragraph", then you should move it to wherever you think it belongs, rather than deleting it. And I don't understand how it "is not written in proper English". Heqwm 03:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I just reverted a few of GCW's recent edits-- specifically those involving "openly-gay" vs "gay" and those that added "out of a total of". Jagz beat me to the punch on one of those, but I reverted the others. Both these issues are discussed in the talk pages icons, because they're issues we considered in the vetting of this page for FAC, so you can observe the whole consensus building process and full debate on these two issues in the archive, but let me try to summarize.
GCW added the qualified "openly gay" when describing the policy. There is actually a pretty substantial debate about whether non-openly gays men are welcome in BSA. The official policy statement only mentions openly gay men, and it is silent on how non-openly gay men should be treated. This leaves the possibility open that perhaps non-openly gay men are welcome in BSA.
As of now, however, that doesn't seem to be the case, at least not a nation-wide basis. Some troups have mentioned they have "don't ask don't tell", presumably welcoming non-open gays. But there have been many other cases in which non-open gays were expelled. One notable case involved a high-level employee of the National Council who was NOT openly gay but who was fired for homosexuality. there are other less notable cases.
In trying to get to the heart of the matter when writing this article, I contacted BSA and asked them to comment on whether non-openly gay men are welcome, but I didn't receive a response. I in turn contacted webmasters of the leading Pro-policy and Anti-policy advocacy sites and asked them their opinion on the issue-- they both were in agreement that in general, non-openly gay males are not welcome in BSA under the current policy.
So, the long and the short of it is: we have no reliable source specifying that BSA nationals allows non-open gays. We have a number of reliable sources in agreement that non-open gays can be expelled in some circumstances. So, until we have a reliable statement from the BSA officially allowing non-open gays to participate, it's OR to claim that only the openly gay are excluded. Obviously, if BSA makes some statement officially allowing them, all that would change. Until they do, we have only their actions to speak for them, and those actions are clear that in some cases, members can be directly confronted with suspicions of homosexuality and expelled on that basis.
In several other cases, when numbers were cited, GCW added "out of a total of". For example, 100 of the 1,500,000 eagle badges issues have been returned in protest. I reverted these sorts of additions as well, and this issue also came up when we were doing the run up to FAC.
The problem with these sorts of statistics is that they imply everyone NOT in the minority disagrees with the minority's position. So, in the eagle scout badge example, the implication is that the other 1,499,900 eagle scouts support the policy. The truth is, that number is simply undecided, and in general, has not weighed in on either side of the issue. Many are no longer living, and cannot weigh in on one side or the other. Most are probably not involved with Scouting anymore, and don't keep up with the policies. Many other oppose the policies, but simply never considered making the gesture of returning their badges in protest. So, as much as we would like to have a statistic that talks about the former eagle scout position on this, we don't have such a survey, and to list the full number of eagle badges only falsely implies that we do.
Let me give this an example, let's say I'm talking about the 2004 US Presidential Election. Suppose I say this:
This sentence is technically true, and it is technically factual, but it is also misleading and unfair to President Bush. The sentence implies that while only 60 million supported the President, the other 240 million didn't vote for him. This is technically true, but it's totally unfair and misleading. The fact is, most American's don't vote, and the majority of those 300 million were "undecided", not "opposed to Bush". And as we know, Bush was, in fact, the most popular candidate. So to say "60 million out of 300 million total supported Bush" is simply very, very misleading-- even if every word of it happens to be true.
So, that's our reasoning. We gave serious consideration to both these issues, and the consensus was to do things this way for a good reason. So, GCW, I applaud you for having the keen eye to realize that both these issues might be points of interest, or ways the article COULD be different. BUt in general, once an article has reached FAC-- if you think you detect a systemic NPOV problem with the article, there's probably a good reason it's being done that way. But of course-- it never hurts to raise the issue.
-- Alecmconroy 15:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Then by your own argument, the clarifying lead "few" must be included! GCW50 15:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The 100 who did return them is obviously a few of the 1,500,000 awarded, even if you ignore the spurious argument (which I never made) that the remainder actively support the position. I found this bias against proportionality throughout the article, where "many" later referred to something described as "several".
In the real world of Scouting (which I suspect you're not a member of) this is an issue that rarely comes up. GCW50 15:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I see Jagz has put in the compromise wording "several"-- that seems fine to me. I can't really compare 100 out of the 1.5 million since who knows how many of that million are still around, but they give out 40 thousand of these things a year, so 100 or so obviously isn't "a lot" based just on that one. At the same time, it's at least in the triple digits, so a few might not get at the fact that it's a group doing it, not just a couple.
As to the concern that the badges aren't being returned by Eagle Scout-- I think you're taking the "returned badges" a little too literally. I believe, though admittedly perhaps I'm wrong, that you have to submit your name in order to declare your officially "returning" the badge. I don't think they're counting just any old badge that people found somewhere and mailed in. Since our source for the badge returning is notable media and the BSA itself, we don't have any reason to suspect that badges are falsely acquired.
About the 30 percent disapproval-- it was an internal poll conducted by the BSA. It's quoted in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and probably others. But no, I haven't been able to find any details about sample size, etc. BSA would presumably have that info, so you could write them for it. Some of the other webmasters on this issue might know. Of course, I'd predict that over time, that statistic is going to drop towards zero, as those who oppose the policy leave BSA and others who are specifically attracted to the policy join BSA. Since gays, atheists, and some people who publically oppose the policy are being expelled, that right off the bat, that should substantially decrease the numbers within BSA who oppose.
In the real world of Scouting (which I suspect you're not a member of) this is an issue that rarely comes up.
Well, there's a whole cottage industry built up on guessing what ties I do and don't have. In the end, it doesn't matter, but you might be surprised. But about the issue in general-- yeah, I'm aware that within Scouting itself, this really doesn't come up. Scouts don't sit around all take talking about how much they hate gays or atheists-- the focus is on the boys and making a great program for the boys, and it's really not about this. This is a common theme whenever you talk to people in scouting-- most feel like this isn't an issue that comes up a lot at the local level. And I think that's a very valid point. This isn't just a "Scouting issue"-- rather, this is a larger societal debate, of which the BSA are but one part. That's a big part of why this is a separate article, rather than just being a large portion of the main BSA article.
-- Alecmconroy 08:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I just think we can do better than the writing that is currently there. As far as I can tell, the returning of badges was a "one-off" thing that sort of fizzled. It created an urban legend that thousands of Eagle Scouts were doing it in protest right after Dale was decided. The bottom line is that very few (less than 100) were involved, so I would feel uncomfortable including it under the "opposition from within" category, unless we mean that there "wasn't much opposition from within." I like the internal survey idea, but it's too loose to say what it really means without some better sources. Does it really rise to "opposition" or just "mild dissatisfaction"? I think that paragraph really needs some work or should be re-focused. -- NThurston 13:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Just curious - according to statements that Heqwm has made, one would infer that the ACLU does not officially "oppose" the BSA policies per se, rather they view themselves as a legal resource for defending people's rights. This policy has led them to offer their services to groups that you might not expect, such as the KKK. So - is it really accurate to say that the ACLU opposes the policies? Or should we re-word to say that the ACLU has been active in assisting others in cases that challenge BSA policies (not much success there) and cases that challenge prefential treatment of the BSA? -- NThurston 15:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I reverted this edit which did a major restructuring of the article. We should talk about why we want to do this. One problem I see right off the bat is that it introduces two headings together without any interveneing text, which the FAC people look down on. Some of the people listed as former members were active members of BSA at the time they began opposing the policies. But if people feel a restructuring is called for, that's something we can definitely talk about, doing an RFC to get more eyeballs as needed. -- Alecmconroy 17:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the article better without the restructuring. Everything is too divided up now and the article doesn't flow well. -- Jagz 18:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Wholesale reverting is not very helpful in this context (See Help:Revert#Tips). We are all perfectly willing to discuss how to make it better, but at the end of the day, the article is getting better. Reverting is necessarily a step backwards. -- NThurston 19:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me correct a misunderstanding here, because I think you've got things backwards a little, with regard to the
Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle]. No one is saying that the article can't be improved-- it always can. But the way we go about it is that first you make a change. If anyone objects, they go ahead and revert back to the consensus form, and then we all talk about it, and if there's a consensus to re-instate the change, we do so.
If, however, we doing things backwards as you suggest, not only do we do contradict policy, but we cause all kinds of problems. For example, when people come and add GOOD, uncontroversial changes to the page, we have to do a LOT of work to revert just the controversial restructuring. Meanwhile, there's a disputed version of the page live for all our visitors. Wikipedia would work on a Bold-DIscuss-Revert cycle. Anyone could make any changes and the encyclopedia would quickly degrade.
When I have more time, I'll explain in greater detail some of the problems introduced with the restructuring-- I know I've mentioned a few, but I could do a better job of discussing this. In the meantime, I suggest a revert back to the consensus version-- although I won't make that revert myself right now, I think anyone else who opposes the restructuring should feel free to. -- Alecmconroy 20:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Currently, this section is under the heading of "Opposition to Boy Scouts of America's policies." Yet the paragraph does not say anything about active opposition. It merely states that other groups have different membership policies. I don't know if that paragraph even belongs in this article, but assuming it does, I don't think it's in a helpful place. Any suggestions? -- NThurston 21:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I reorganized the article. Is it acceptable like this? (I reverted before the reorganization because with the numerous recent changes it became very difficult to sort out what has changed recently.) -- Jagz 03:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, NT, I'm in a difficult position. On the one hand, I definitely don't want to seem like a bully or being too overbearing, or otherwise be open to the criticism of WP:OWN. But on the other hand-- I don't want to undertake a major reorganization/rewrite without a firm understand of why it's needed.
A lot of people have looked over this article and found its structure acceptable. Jagz wrote the bulk of it, I and many others helped. There were a number of peer reviews, two FACs. A lot of eyeballs have been over this. I didn't find anything wrong with the organizations, neither did Jagz, neither did the peer review or the FAC. What he had here was very much a 'consensus' version-- as much as an article can be.
Now, you think there is something wrong with the organization, so you want to improve it, so you are being bold. That's fine and quite appropriate, and as you mention-- there have been a lot of additions to the article since it hit FAC, and they've been good improvements. But, if ya make an edit, and people don't like it--- there's an impetus on you to convince us BEFORE you change it back. Now, there were many, many changes all done at once-- rewordings, reorganizations, deletions, etc. I was almost impossible to easily follow. I looked it over and found a number of changes I didn't agree with. As of this moment, I haven't yet come to understand why a major reorganization/rewrite is even needed. Jagz also looked it over and didn't like the reorganization, and posted so earlier up on the talk page.
My point of view therefore is that particular Being Bold, while good intentioned, isn't helpful on this case, and we should slow down, discuss, and reach a consensus and talk about why there need to be a rewrite in the first place.
An FA requires a _lot_ of time and effort to go into it, it requires a lot of approval to get where it is, and it carries the special star that implies the current version has been rigorously screened. In short-- major rewrites of a FAC are a lot harder to justifies, and there really isn't much excuse for edit warring AWAY from the the consensus version that has undergone FAC approval. It's not that any of the rewrite jumped out at me as a glaring NPOV violation or blantant POV pushing or any other sort of bad faith. But, given how much does go into a FA-- I would expect people to tread a little bit more lightly than usual, and not to make major article-wide changes without a clear mandate to do so. Major, Controversial changes away from the approved-form of a FA shouldn't be made through edit wars, they should be done through strong consensus, RFC, Mediation, or Arbiatration.
Based on all this-- if it were up to me, I'd just revert the whole thing back to the consensus version that existed before the rewrite, and then slowly, carefully, discuss what needs to be changed about that version, doing an rfc/peer review if needed for more eyeballs, and take it that way. But Jagz has spent some time trying to make a compromise proposal, I don't see too much harm in leaving that up for the time being to see what people think. As of what I've seen and heard so far, I think I like the old version better, but perhaps I just haven't heard the argument for change put to me in the right way. -- Alecmconroy 05:10, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
These are the current thesis statements (by paragraph number):
1. Lawsuits have challenged BSA membership policies, specifically gender, orientation.
2. Lawsuits about gays and atheists have been unsuccessful
3. BSA's right to establish membership has been established through case law
4. Lawsuits about gender have been unsuccessful
5. The focus of lawsuits has shifted toward government relationships.
Issue #1: Having 3 in between 2 & 4 makes no sense. "These rulings" should equally apply to the gender rulings as to the orientation/atheism rulings. Three solutions - A) move 3 before 2 and change the first sentence - "The right of the BSA to set their own membership standards has been firmly established through case law." B) Switch 3 & 4 and modify three to include a reference to gender cases, too. C) Combine the thesis of 3 into 1 - Cases challenging membership policy have resulted in case law indicated that BSA has the right to establish membership.
Issue #2: As cited, the Dale case does not support the thesis statement of 3 directly. It is better used to support the thesis statement of paragraph 2. -- NThurston 14:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Thesis Statements (by number again)
1. BSA's access to governmental resources has become controversial ("and resulted in litigation" needs to be added since this is the main idea of this whole section.)
2. Receiving access on terms more favorable than other private organizations is known as "special" access
3. BSA has special access to A.P. Hill
4. (This one is tough because it is not well written) - Litigation has come up asking the courts to define when a local government a) can and b) has to grant special access to the BSA.
5. The Federal government has responded to litigation by passing new laws.
Main Issue: Paragraph 4 is disjointed and needs a rewrite. The point of that paragraph is NOT clear.
Solution 1 - There are really two points - A) Private individuals and local governments have taken actions (policies and lawsuits) that restrict BSA's special access based on the membership policies. and B) BSA has sued local governments claiming that they cannot discriminate in the granting of special access based on constitutional rights to membership. (This means probably having two paragraphs.)
Solution 2 - Make "Uncertainty about what 'special access versus 'equal access means is the source of current litigation." into a thesis statement -- NThurston 14:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
All of these cases are related to Special Access and should have a more direct link to the Access section. A transition paragraph would do the trick. I also understand that the federal actions (paragraph 5 in Access section) are in reaction to some of "these" cases, so again we have a problem of misplaced antecedents. I recommend moving these paragraphs into the Access section, perhaps as a subsection, and putting them right before 5 (Federal Congressional action). --
NThurston
14:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I have some additional problems with the local special access paragraph. First, there's no indication of how wide-spread the local anti-discrimination ordinances are. Second, there's no discussion of what those ordinances mean and who they apply to. Can a city require all private organizations in their jurisdiction to have a non-discrimination policy? Clearly not. So what can they actually do with these ordinances? Do they only apply to special access or are there other ways that cities have tried to push on the BSA? Third, there is a difference between ordinances and operational policies. For example, a nearby mayor recently attempted to create a policy (it was just the mayor's policy, not an ordinance) that would have required all businesses receiving city contract funds to have a non-discrimination policy (among other things). This policy wouldn't affect the BSA in any way, because they don't do contract work for the city. Then, the city council told him to knock it off, and passed an ordinance prohibiting this type of discrimination. (These details may not be the actual facts of any particular case, but highlight the issue.) The paragraph also fails to adequately describe the process of litigation in the most prominent cases: 1) Local government denies special access, 2) BSA sues the local government based on non-discrimination theory. The paragraph mentions that private citizens are suing local governments to restrict special access but this thought is not well connected to the arguments or thesis of the paragraph. -- NThurston 14:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Thesis statements (for the whole section by paragraph number)
1. There has been an increase in oppositon to the BSA's membership policies in recent years
2. Some within Boy Scouts of America are opposed to the membership policies. Issue: The only supporting sentence does not even refer to those within the BSA. Neither of the sources indicate that any current member of the BSA returned their badges. In fact, the cases cited were actually all former members. Compromises: "Some within 'Scouting'" or "Some people who have been affiliated with the BSA"
3. Some local units and councils have unsuccessfully tried to have non-discrimination policies
4. Former Scouts and Scouters have formed organizations that advocate the inclusion of gays and atheists.
Issues:
5. Steven Spielberg resigned his position with the BSA in protest.
6. The Unitarian Universalist Association has vocally opposed the BSA's membership exclusions.
7. Some other religious groups that formerly supported Scouting (?) have withdrawn support and severed their ties.
8. Some private institutions have severed their ties to the BSA as a result of their membership policies resulting in a loss of funding.
9. The BSA forbids its adult members from using their leader status to express political views to the public or to youth members.
10. Dave Rice was a dedicated Scouter who was removed for advocating policy change
11. Not all of the Scouting movement has accepted the need to exclude atheists and/or gays.
Proposed changes:
-- NThurston 14:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
GCW50: What is the point you are trying to make about this? You need to provide citations with statements you add. -- Jagz 16:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The Union for Reform Judadism on it's webpage says that it's up to congregation to decide. Their Social Action committe did say what is listed here, but that's just a committee, not a ruling body. I would strongly urge you to go beyond the edited cites on bsa discrimin ation.org and go to the original source material. GCW50 18:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
How do you cite something so the cites are not duplicated in the References list? -- Jagz 16:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
An example
First Cite: <ref name="impact">{{cite web|url=http://lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/fact.html?record=1325|work= Lambda Legal|title=The Impact of the Boy Scouts of America’s Anti-Gay Discrimination|accessdate=March 2|accessyear=2006}} </ref>
Second Cite: <ref name="impact"/>
-- NThurston 16:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I wrote a tutorial on this. -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
So, I replied to all the proposed changes. One big room for improvement I see expanding the "access to governmental resources" section into a full article, and if anyone wanted to do that, that would be very cool, because as NT correctly points out-- we basically do a very quick rundown, and there is lot more to say about it.
I also definitely can tell that have a sort of awkward organization when it comes to the girls issue, and there might be room for improvement for where we put that girls issue. So, I'd really like to hear feedback on which options people like.
At the same time, I note that some of the recent editors feel that the page has widespread problems of logic and NPOV, and there has been very aggressive editing in that direction. I personally disagree that these problems. If Jagz, Rlevse, and other agree with the edits, I certainly won't be the one to insist. But in general, the page is a very good one, if you disagree, you've should be focusing on convincing, not editing.
Anyway, the edits are so much that I can't keep up, so keep in mind my comments are more on 'general principle' at this time, not so much on the specific edits. In a few days, when the editing has settled down and people feel like they've done what edits they want to do-- I'll go through it and compare that version with the pre-rewrite version, and try to keep the changes that I personnally agree are improvements or which are supported by strong consensus.
Please try too respect the current article and the current balance, and if you feel this article is unbalanced, do an RFC / talk. Trying to change the POV of the article to make a point, won't likely be successful, as Heq. found out. Just on a hunch, I checked the article to see if the much-contested 30%-oppose survey was still in the article, and as I suspected-- it has been removed. I realize some (but not necessarily all) of the new editors very strongly disagree with opposition, but this does not cause such opposition to not exist. :) --- Alecmconroy 05:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
This case has no link in the article. Not sure if it did at one time. Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America -- Jagz 07:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Alec raises an important point - What is this article really about? Is it about membership controversies generally or the current membership controversies(orientation & theism)? Please use this section to help us find consensus.
Comment The article should be about the totality of membership controversies in the BSA. The girls issue is a historical important feature for two reasons - 1) It was the beginning of case law establishing right to association, and 2) The BSA's policy on girls and women has changed significantly over time. Even though they presumably have the right to do otherwise, they now allow women leaders in all positions, and girls to be members of some programs. -- NThurston 14:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the reason so many governmental bodies have reconsidered the terms of BSA's access to their resources in recent years was caused by the enactment of anti-discrimination ordinances or something similar followed by the public attention cast on the BSA by related court decisions. I don't think that most governmental bodies were acting simply to punish or spite the BSA. What do you think? -- Jagz 16:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know of an instance where a government body created a law or rule primarily to punish the BSA? -- Jagz 07:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Please try to refrain from nit-picking edits. Cite your statements. Try to edit without bias. -- Jagz 18:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm just checking in every now and then, but notice there's been a some of 'gutting' of the Opposition section, so I suspect that the current edits are introducing widespread NPOV problems. Please be wary of introducing such problems-- if they exist in a few days when I get around to going through all the changed, I know I may just revert the wherever I see them back to the NPOV FA text. Someone else may do it before me. it just wastes people time when you edit with bia-- it won't actually change the article in the long run -- Alecmconroy 19:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Both occur in the Litigation section
-- NThurston 20:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
So, I finally found the time to go through and sort through the recent edits. There were lot of WikiGnome edits that had been made lately-- replacing duplicate links, fixing capitalization, and other such thigs--- so thanks for those! THe "Support for" and "Opposition for" order was swapped-- it took me a second, but I think it's actually a really good improvment. There were a lot of really good introductory statments that made things a little smoother.
A few of the changes I disagreed with, so I reverted or altered them. Here's the changes I made and why:
One main area of discussion right now is the Access to Government Resoureces section. One way the article could be better is if we moved some of the specific details about the access issue to the Government Resources article. RIght now, this article is hte only place to put that stuff, so we're putting each specific case here. The stuff should be in wikipedia somewhere, but this article probably doesn't need that level of specificity. I tweaked the sentence about "many localities" so that it is more vague about what kinds of laws they have-- it used to be ordinance is, but perhaps that's less accurate sinse ordinances implies only local laws-- not necessarily all the federal and state ones. I also changed "BSA policies are sometimes contrary to these laws" to "may sometimes be contrary", to be as NPOV on the issue as possible.
Another main area of dispute right now is the removal of text from the opposition section. I've addressed most of those above, but in particular, let me object to the removal of the Youth Organizations that don't exclude gays/atheists. The claim was basically made that these organizations don't actually OPPOSE discriminating against gays or atheists, and their non-discriminatory policies don't, in anyway, imply that those organizations oppose such discrimination. Structurally, the text was basically implying that these organizations feel "There's nothing wrong with the BSA's policies at all, there's nothing wrong with discriminations-- we just don't do it". I think this is a very original and unique intepretation of non-discrimination statements. When a government, university, business, or organization says "we do not practice discrimination", I think the logical conclusion is they don't believe in such discrimination-- not that they are cool with it, they just don't feel like doing it themselves.
In any case, that point is moot, because even if you don't think "prohibiting discrimination" necessarily implies "disapproving of discrimination", the fact remains that lots of the organizations (Girl Scouts and 4-H most notably) have explicitly stated their disapproval of the BSA's policy. Opponents also reference these organizations as pieces of evidence in their own argument that counter hte BSA's interpretation of Scouting (and youth-organization) values, so any way you swing it, these organization's prohibition of such discrimnation is a relevant part of the opposition.
-- Alecmconroy 03:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Jagz-- I see that you've re-added part of the material I had deleted. As is usually the case when you revert me, I'm totally okay with it. :). Nothing I said above should prevent us from also discussing the WOSM requirements, as you did in the re-added material-- my objection was just to the complete removal of other youth organizations from the opposition section, not also to the broader discussion that occurs. I might suggest, stylistically, that you integrate that paragraph into the "Scouting Values affecting membership" rather than leave it in-between Opposition and Support. But, just a suggestion. -- Alecmconroy 12:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I have made most of the "minor" revisions of Alec's fine work. However, there is a big problem that needs many eyes - the "other organization" sections. The current two-part format doesn't make any sense. This needs to be just one stand-alone section. Any interest in concensus? -- NThurston 15:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
If you haven't figured it out yet, one of the primary purposes of this website, http://www.bsalegal.org/, is to disseminate biased propaganda. I was involved with this article for several months before it became obvious to me. People for the most part believe what they want to believe. -- Jagz 22:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
By coincidence, I just made some comments on BSALegal over at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-08 BSA##Comments_from_Gadget850_.28_Ed.29. BSALegal presents articles on one of point of view, while Scouting for All, BSA Discrimination and Inclusive Scouting presents articles from a different point of view. All four sites are biased towards a particular agenda. Since BSALegal was registered well after the other sites, I would speculate that it was created at least partly in response to the other sites. -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Here are some discussions on my latest round of changes:
Let me also say something about the referencing. In general dealing when dealing with references (not just on this page, but in general), if a reference link goes dead, don't remove it, because the reference still exists and can be useful to editors and readers who want to know where that information is. Additionally, most websites are stored in various archives (like
here), so they are still accessable to researchers. We should of course look for new references that doesn't have a broken link, but don't delete the reference outright just because the link is dead-- then we won't remeber where we got what from where. Instead, just look for a new ref that says the same thing, adding the Fact tag as needed, and deleting the broken link only when the new references have made the old one superfluous. The situation is analgous to a book going out of print-- if you are writing a paper and you used that book as a source, you should still list it in your bibliography-- but it would be BETTER if you could use a non-out-of-print book instead.
Additionally, if you think a reference isn't sufficient to justify a statment, add a Citation Requested tag, but don't delete the reference. (With an obvious exception in cases where the reference is so unrelated that you think it's a mistake). This will signal to readers that the statement is not, in your eyes, justified by the reference, but they can still see what reference there is for it. It may be that the reference does in fact fully justify the sentence, but you didn't notice it. It may be that the reference partially-- but not completely justifies the sentence.
With regard to this specific issue-- I would't work to hard to find replacement links/archival links for all the Scouting For All references. Their main page says they're just having temporary server trouble.
-- Alecmconroy 02:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Why does the ACLU logo keep getting removed? The only objection raised during the featured article candidate review was its location. It was relocated and the person who commented was satisfied. There were no additional comments. Not being a fan of the ACLU is not a sufficient reason for removing the logo. -- Jagz 02:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Is Winkler v. Rumsfeld just about the issue of federal government funding of national Scout jamborees or does it also consider the issue of the BSA's special access to the Army base, Fort A.P. Hill, the home location of jamborees. -- Jagz 17:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Can this category be removed from the bottom of this page? -- Jagz 18:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
You pointed to one of the main challenges of covering certain aspects of BSA. There are areas (such as the last few topics in this discussion section) where the real understanding (the forest vs. selected trees) is basically a synthesis from thousands of observations over decades. UnWikipedian (OR in a contested area)unless they published their findings elsewhere to cite.
In reality, any writing with any expertise is inherently OR, which cites that cover specific areas. So, where it is allowed (on non-controversial items) the system works. Where it is disallowed (as it must be) on controversial areas, you see a lot of unstable articles with eternal arm wrestling. This seem pervasive on Wikipedia articles covering contentious areas.
Maybe with a plan & consensus amongst the main contributors, this article could do two things that have not been done before .......a good, informative, stable article in a contentious area, and coverage of some of the hard-to-cover, not-covered-well-elsewhere BSA topics.
This would not require agreement on the ares of contention, just agreement on covering the controversy vs. something that is cleverly designed to bolster one or the other side of the controversy.
North8000 ( talk) 17:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)