Talk:Group of 88

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Debating Proposals to Delete this Page

Some Wikipedians are proposing that this page be deleted. For those of you who are not experienced Wikipedians, you can see discussions pertaining to this deletion proposalhere: [1]. -The kekon (talk) 18:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge/redirect

This article is of poor quality and the topic is done better at Responses to the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case#Duke faculty groups. I have moved all the links which check out to that article and made this one into a redirect. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No one is going to build up an article that so many people are actively trying to take down. Please stop redirecting the page until the discussions are finished. -The kekon (talk) 16:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All 88 signatories should be listed

Only 15 of the signers are listed by name in the article. Who were the other 73?

They wanted to go "on the record" when they were baying for blood, they should be held accountable now that the truth has come out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.195.84 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is not here to "hold people accountable" for things. We are only here to provide information in appropriate, encyclopedic detail, based on what is covered in reliable sources. The vast majority of those people are not notable, and thus do not deserve mention in Wikipedia. I'm sure there are hundreds of websites where you could find that info. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And how are their identities NOT part of the appropriate encyclopedic detail? It's the "Group of 88" not the "Group of 15 and, uh, 73 nobodies." If they're "not notable" singularly then they're not notable when 88 of them put their names to a published document. Or is there some NPOV reason you would prefer those 73 remain un-named? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.208.105 (talk) 22:10, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP is a start--we don't include random information on living people just because we can, and just because it's sourced; we must take extra care to only talk about living people in ways that are meaningful and connected broadly to the greater story that needs to be told. More importantly, though, WP:UNDUE (which is a part of WP:NPOV) is really dominating here--our job is to provide an encyclopedic overview of the topic, not list every detail. Taking up a big chunk of the article with a list of names would be excessive. For example: do any reliable sources other than the letter itself list out all of the names? If they don't, that already is a very strong indication that we should not. If reliable sources haven't considered the information important enough to talk about, then we certainly should not override them and look to the primary source of the letter itself and extract out additional information. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:19, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Disputed

The lead states that the original ad "contained language implying that the charges were true." I can't find the exact wording of the original ad, but the follow-up letter specically denied that. So, I think we need an exact quote from the original ad justifying that assertion, or the statement should be removed.

This article presents the matter as if there was an actual organization called the "Group of 88". What is the evidence for that? Wasn't it a newspaper ad, not a group? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:32, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A link to a copy of the ad has been posted at ANI. That verifies that the ad contained no such prejudgment of guilt. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:12, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We could perhaps say that RS interpreted the ad to imply that the charges were true.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:44, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence marked with [citation needed] in the lead does not necessarily need a citation per WP:CITELEAD as it does not present anything controversial itself but summarizes the response as it is in the following section Commentary and criticism. The whole controversy was about the advertisement implying (or atleast interpreted so) that the charges were true. A tag for [page needed] was added for citation number 4 which is a website without pages. Instead of spending 1 second in Google search to acquire a new link for the rotten one, a few [dead link] tags were added. I will do that, then. For some reason though, the [dead link] tag was added for citation number 14 which is a working link. Lastly, I don't believe the National media section needs an additional NPOV-tag when the article itself has one.

Gamaliel removed a sentence about an opinion piece in the The Chronicle (Duke University). Apparently the publication is deemed notable enough for a Wikipedia entry, and while not a notable RS, it could be relevant about happenings at the Duke University. He also removed an excerpt from the Johnson and Taylor book about the subject. While it was a very critical statement on the Group of 88, it is from a book dedicated to this subject and being so critical, it describes what the criticism actually was about. Regards to NPOV, I'm afraid the commentary section will inevitably be critical of the Group of 88 because the rape accusation was found out to be false. You won't get a balance of 50-50 positive-negative views on this. --Pudeo ' 05:08, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, Pudeo, that you do not choose to respond to the substantive points raised. Which statement in the original advertisement, (provide a quotation, please), "contained language implying that the charges were true"? Polemical sources make that claim, but I have been able to find no such statement in the original ad. In addition, these people have been described as members of the "Group of 88". How, precisely, does signing a newspaper ad consign a person to lifelong membership in a nonexistent organization? We may all agree that the ad was ill-advised based on what was learned later about the accuser and the prosecutor. But that does not justify adding inaccurate information about 88 people who signed a newspaper ad. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:26, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The controversial aspect of the lead sentence is the issue of whether signing a newspaper ad constitutes joining a "group", specifically the so-called "Group of 88", a moniker coined by these people's ideological opponents. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Citations Needed

Here's an archive of the advertisement that is linked from the clarification web site

I'm brand new to Wikipedia so I'm not sure if that's sufficient for some of the citation needed tags in the (article, journal, page --what's the right terminology?) 209.197.26.81 (talk) 05:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. Do you see any statements in that advertisement that prejudge the guilt of the accused? Or that support any of the other "citation needed" tags in the article? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Cullen, Well, I see some statements that are clear references to the events that occurred, but I can't say I see anything that clearly prejudges the accused. I've been working on a possible change to the intro and here's what I've come up with:

The group of 88 is the moniker given to the 88 signatories of a controversial advertisement that was published two weeks after the the events that initiated the Duke lacrosse case. The advertisement, which appeared in the Duke Chronicle on April 6, 2006, contained language that many considered inflammatory. --cite1, cite2, cite3
In January 2007 a clarification letter was posted as a web page at http://www.concerneddukefaculty.org stated that the ad had been "...been broadly, and often intentionally, misread." and that "Worse, it has been read as rendering a judgment in the case." --cite3 The letter was endorsed by 87 members of Duke faculty although not all were signatories of the original ad.
-cite 1 http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1574810,00.html -cite 2 http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2007/04/13/search-closure -cite 3 http://www.concerneddukefaculty.org/

Given this is my first real foray into Wikipedia, although I've been a reader for quite some years, I'm a little daunted by actually changing anything.

Please excuse the clumsy cites I'm still working on how to use the markup here. Thaks 209.197.26.81 (talk) 06:04, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]