Talk:Media Access Project

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One thing to watch out for

As you're adding info here, one thing you need to be careful of is distinguishing between sources that actually talk about MAP, and sources that only mention MAP because they're pulling a quotation from one of the MAP executives. That is, just because one of the MAP employees is quoted, that doesn't mean that the given opinion actually has anything to do with MAP. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:18, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maintenance tags

I've just added several maintenance tags to the article. Below is a copy of a message I left for User:Darklavalizard regarding this article and why I've tagged the article this way

I wish you had asked me before moving the article into mainspace. I'm going to throw some tags on it, but you have a really fundamental problem--you haven't established the organization is notable (in the sense used by Wikipedia, which you can read about at WP:N). The sources you have don't support the claim that MAP is notable. The first source I can't read, but the information you've pulled from it seems to indicate the article doesn't actually discuss MAP in detail. The second source is probably not a reliable source, given that it's "news" published, not in a news sources, but on a business-to-business marketing company's page. The truth is, at this point, the article is almost eligible for speedy deletion, as it doesn't make any credible claims about the organization's importance. It almost certainly would not survive an Article for deletion discussion. I'm not going to speedy it (although someone else might), but if enough supporting material isn't added within the next few days, I may nominate it for deletion (that would result in a 7 day discussion about whether or not the group is notable). For now, I'm just going to add some maintenance templates.

Please let me know how I can help. While I understand that this is a class project, that fact doesn't override the need for articles to meet certain standards to remain in the encyclopedia. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:02, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Improving this article

While you seem to be off to an ok start, I think there are some major issues with this article.

1) MAP is not the multi-media access project. I should have noticed this earlier. Please remove all references to this. They are not involved with audio/visual equipment. They are a public advocacy group.

2) You have not sourced the MAP website, or written anything about the material noted on the website. There is a ton of information on the site that you should be working with. To begin with, the "about" page.

3) I see no academic articles cited, this will soon be a very big deal.

4) You need section headers to start building within. These are all things that I hope you work on in your lab time.

Let me know if you have questions.Jaobar (talk) 06:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I never followed up on this before. It all seemed good, but when I re-read it now, I note that you need to be very careful about point #2 above. While it is okay to have some information sourced by the MAP website, most of the article can't come from there, and nothing that is promotional or contentious should come from there, because their page is a self-published source which we cannot be certain of the neutrality of. I gather you're a part of this group, Dr. Obar, so please know that I mean no disrespect, but, in general, a company/organization/person's own website can only be used in a limited way to cite information in the article, per WP:RS. It is reliable for certain uncontroversial, internal things, like the organization's key actors, founding dates, some aspects of its history. Just be careful for overly promotional language or POV.

However, the MAP site is an excellent place for you all (the team working on this page) to look for other sources. For example. I bet that if you scoured through the MAP In the News page, you'll be able to find reliable sources that do help. Be sure, though, not to overlook any negative commentary about the group, if it exists and is reliable. One place that you can skip on the site though is the Press Releases section, since Press releases are basically never reliable for WP purposes. If you're not sure if any given source is reliable, post it here on the talk page first and I'll happily review it, or ask input from other people at the reliable source's noticeboard. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Verify tag in lead

I added a "verify source" tag right after the first reference. I looked at the pages that the google book search brought up, but couldn't find any that mentioned MAP. If you can point to the specific page number that they're mentioned on, then that would solve the problem. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Net Neutrality

You need to cut almost part of that section, and replace it with something actually related to MAP. You don't need to define or give background on NN--the wikilink is sufficient for anyone who wants to know more about it. That's actually one of the biggest differences between college essays and Wikipedia articles--we don't provide background/context for information, instead tending to isolate topics and using wikilinks for those who want to know more.

The second paragraph concerns me, and actually points out the concern I had with this article before it was even created (when I did my own pre-research on the group). When I read that article, I don't see any actual evidence of MAP's involvement in this case. Instead, what I see is the senior VP of MAP making a comment, and that comment does not appear to be on behalf of MAP itself. I don't see any evidence that MAP filed a briefing on this case or acted in any official capacity. As such, it shouldn't be in this article, because it doesn't actually appear to be connected to MAP. Compare this to the Comcast case in the prior paragraph, in which it explicitly states that MAP filed an FCC petition.

The third paragraph I had to pull immediately, because it violated WP:NPOV by providing opinion-like phrasing about the argument. It portrayed the debate as a "fight", had a negative tone about House Republicans, and made suppositions about the White House's actions. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with MAP. That information (in properly neutral form) might be appropriate for the net neutrality article, assuming it's not already there, but it doesn't belong here.

As always, let me know if you have any questions. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our prof drew up an outline of what our page could look like and included was net neutrality as well as comments from staff. All the information came from reliable source or an academic journal. I see what you meant about the wording of the last paragraph so I am just going to re write that particular paragraph. Although while i cited that paragraph from huffington post there is also evidence from academic journals to support the content. Thanks again for your help.24.11.200.95 (talk) 05:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that while your professor is of course the final arbitrator of what goes on in your class,the final decision of what this article should look like rests with the Wikipedia community. And our style of writing and standards are different (not better or worse--just different) than that which is expected in college writing. So keep working on it, and I'll keep providing input. Please be sure to try to address my concerns above (and Dr. Obar is certainly welcome to contact me directly, here or on my talk page); as a work in progress, I'm letting the first to paragraphs slide for now, but eventually I'll want to work on them to bring them up to snuff. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes this is a semi-rough draft. So the page wont be finalized and pdfed to be turned in until next sunday. In the meantime I will be doing some tweaking of the first two paragraphs and adding one possibly 2-3 more small size paragraphs. However it seems if we dont upload the majority of are stuff at once and then pdf it immediately we might never hit our word count needed. THanks again 24.11.200.95 (talk) 07:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Citation

My citation #8 doesnt seem to be working. It came from a academic journal but in order for me to access the journal I had to login with my MSU email and password. So how is anyone else going to be able to access it? What do you do in a situation like this? Thanks Murph146 (talk) 19:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in general, they won't, and that's not actually a problem. In fact, the vast majority of academic journals are not accessible to people outside of a university, and that's fine. The relevant policy is WP:PAYWALL, which basically says that, while it would be great if everything were immediately accessible, the truth is that's not going to be the case. Really, it's no different than referencing a print book--that would also require access to an offline source. What you do need to do is to provide a link that does work, which, normally, would go to JSTOR or some other journal archiving site. That usually brings up a page with the abstract and full publication info--that way, if someone does want to track down the source, the can.

However, when I searched for this article, it turns out that the article is available online! So, I'll go ahead and update the URL. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changes

I just made a bunch of changes; I think the edit summaries explain each one. Please let me know if you have any questions. I haven't really dug in deep to the sources you're using to verify the information is reported accurately, but I'll have to worry about that later. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Been speaking with the students and they are slightly frustrated with the edits to their work. I recognize and appreciate that you are trying to hold their work to a very high standard. That being said, perhaps in some instances (if I may say), you are jumping to cut instead of rework. For example, the quote you removed from the opening about "being the only group to represent" or whatever... yes it sounded incorrect because there a lot of groups that speak for the public in the same context. What MAP's website means when they present the quote (it was copied directly) is that they (I believe) are the only group that represents individuals in terms of legal representation. Whether this is true or not, I'm not 100% sure. I would have likely changed the quote to clarify the situation by saying legal representation and also would have phrased it by saying that they "claim" to be the only. This, instead of cutting, to me, seems more appropriate at this stage.

Mr. Schwartman is also a pretty big deal at MAP and having info on his qualifications and a bit about his history would also seem to make sense. Again, I am confused why you were so quick to cut this material instead of debating this issue with the students. Jaobar (talk) 18:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because this is standard Wikipedia editing practices, outlined at WP:BRD. When one person makes a change that someone else disagrees with, they reverts and/or modify it. Then, if the original editor still thinks it belongs, then they should take it to the talk page and discuss the issue. Had this article stayed in a user sandbox, I would probably have left it. Since it's in mainspace, anyone can and should edit it--that is, it doesn't get special status as a student project. Furthermore, since the students at no point asked for any mentoring help from me, including moving it into mainspace when it was in a state when it should have been deleted, implied to me that it should be treated like a normal article. Personally, I think this improves learning, given that real work in the real world is collaborative and chaotic; you and the students may certainly disagree. I would be happy to continue this discussion here. In the section on "Net Neutrality" above, I started having a good conversation with one of the students (not sure which one, since they accidentally didn't log in), although by the end I feel like we drifted a little bit into concerns about completing the assignment achieving a minimum word count.

Regarding the quotation: The quotation can't stand unless it's verified by an independent, reliable source, since it's purely biased opinion. For example, we wouldn't report that "Actor X claimed to be the greatest living Actor, and is the only one truly perfecting his craft", and then provide a citation to that person's website. If you take a look at WP:ABOUTSELF, it lays out some fairly strict criteria for how we use sources that come from the article subject about itself. So, for example, we can certainly cite the MAP website regarding the number of members they have, court cases they've filed, and their general stances on media issues. We cannot cite them for any claims about their own value, their quality, their success rate, etc. Anything with even a hint of self-aggrandizement has to come out, as does anything else that isn't strictly factual.

Regarding Schwartzman, the issue is more debatable. In general, the principle is that an article should stick to its primary focus. However, I could see the possibility of including a little more about Schwartzman, and I certainly welcome discussion here (nudge nudge to the students). I'd also love a discussion (maybe on the Project's talk page, or on Sage Ross's Public Policy page) about how to think about issues like this for future projects. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:49, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

April 30 edits

The information Stepiana just added to Specturm access needs to come out--that has nothing to do with MAP; I mean, maybe it provides some background, but that's not how WP articles work. Adding it here is a form of original research, as you're attempting to provide context for the existence of MAP. Unless you have a source connecting MAP and definitions of spectrum, or to the origins of the FCC, it cannot be in the article. As a courtesy, I'm asking you to remove it here rather than remove it myself, but request that you do so right away.

Murph146, please provide a source that doesn't go through the MSU system for the info you just added to Schwartzmann; even if that's only a link to the abstract or summary, we need such a link to verify the existence of the article. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean a link citing the information where the info in the academic journal came from? Murph146 (talk) 16:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, as we discussed above, you can't provide the link that requires an MSU password. You'll need to try searching for the article outside of your library system; most likely, this will give you a link to an abstract or archiving site. That's fine, even if other people can't access it, but we need to be able to verify the article's existence and publication info. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:51, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added a link for the site where the information in the academic journal came from. The reason the msu link needs to stay as well is we are required to pull citations from at least 8 academic journals and one of them is the link we just talked about to the msu resource. Murph146 (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying the link needs to go. I'm saying that you need to provide a link that works for someone outside of MSU, even if that link goes to just an abstract or summary page. That link right now is useless to anyone w/o an MSU password--I can't even tell the name of the article, the author, etc. The purpose of references is so that other users can verify the information, or at least verify the existence of the article. Right now, another reader doesn't even have evidence of the article's existence.

And now I see that Stepiana added 2 more references in the same format. Basically, any URL that starts with "search.proquest.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu" is not helpful. Please fix those so that non-MSU readers and editors can properly access the information. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:23, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is the additonal link i provided fine? Thanks Murph146 (talk) 00:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Washington Post one is great. The Hotline one is the one that needs to be changed. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added the washington post citation to support the hotline academic journal source. As i stated we need a minimum of 8 academic journal sources. Unfourtuntely i can't get that one in a pdf. Therefore i supported it at your request with the washington post which is where the information in the academic journal came from. Murph146 (talk) 01:54, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that Hotline isn't archived or stored anywhere. As such, I've just removed the URL--this is just like as if you used a book, or a pre-internet journal for a reference. I'll go check the other two now. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:14, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and removed the rest of the proxy links. I was only able to replace one (the Project Muse one); that's fine--no link is better than one that runs through the proxy server. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:21, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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