Talk:Think Together

Contested deletion[edit]

I'm the creator of this article. Besides the very specific info in the Organization section, almost everything in this article is taken from a reliable third party source - there is no advertising or promotional material. I'd like to know what triggered this deletion action, let alone a speedy one, but there's nothing in the talk page to hint as to the nominating editor's motivation. A more measured approach when deleting knowledge from the world would be to suggest changes. Looking at the huge volume of the nominating editor's deletion activity, I wonder if it's possible that a fair and careful effort was not made to review the sources, which include the Huffington Post and the Orange County Register? I welcome a discussion of the article's merits, and possible fixes short of the nuclear option, from other neutral editors.Timtempleton (talk) 06:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are still some pretty promotional sections. It has some PR buzzwords like "passion" and "reach their full potential". It's not something completely unfixable, mostly it needs some editing here and there since it does somewhat still read like a press release. Since it does come across like this, I do have to ask: do you have any affiliation with this organization? By that I mean, were you asked to create this page? The reason I ask is that this is the way many COI articles are written, as some of them are based off of press material given to the editor. You can still edit with a COI, you just need to be careful and be very transparent about this throughout the creation process. Easiest way to do this is to post something on your userpage. Now if you're not a COI editor, you need to be more careful about catching PR buzzwords, since that's what tripped this article up. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing I'm catching while I'm cleaning this is that you use a lot of abbreviations and sentences that have been abbreviated and are thus incomplete, sort of. You need to be careful not to abbreviate things in articles. Either write them out or do not include them. For example, don't use the abbreviation "CA" in an article when referring to California. Instead, just list out the state's name completely or leave it off. Since the article already asserted that TT is only in California, it's better to leave it off since it'd be considered somewhat redundant. The unfortunate side effect of this is that if someone already suspects (correctly or not) that the article is promotional/COI, stuff like this can make them believe that you're pulling this from a press release or checklist for the organization. It's why you've got to be so careful about stuff like this. Offhand I don't think that you're necessarily a COI editor, but I need to hammer home that you need to be careful since you were already brought to the COI noticeboard once before. If you keep getting questioned as a COI editor then eventually that builds up. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another biggie - do not link to merchant/e-commerce sites like Amazon. This is another way the article can come across as promotional, since the site's main (or even sole) reason for existing is to sell you something. Listing it can be see as an endorsement by Wikipedia of the site or product. It's also something that's frequently done in promotional articles. You really need to be careful of stuff like this. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another issue. This one is with this specific section:

"THINK Together's district partnerships have already helped close the achievement gap in several communities. In a 2012 Education Trust-West study, 140 large unified school districts in California were graded on their progress toward closing the achievement gap over five years. The highest performing district in closing the achievement gap is Baldwin Park, a THINK Together partner."

The problem here is that you source it to the GuideStar profile for the organization. That wouldn't necessarily be an issue except that it was taken from a section that was clearly labeled "Self-reported by organization". This means that they reported their own success, so these claims would be backed up by a primary source. The other link was dead and a search didn't bring up anything that immediately mentioned the organization. For claims of this nature you must source it to something independent and it must explicitly state that the organization led to this, otherwise it's considered to be original research. Organizations can make whatever claims they want and while it's likely that they helped with this, we cannot accept their claims at face value - especially if the article is believed to be promotional. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:22, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for this is that there might be other reasons for the increase, so for Wikipedia's purposes we cannot automatically assume that the two are related. It's kind of a catch - while it's extremely likely that they helped these groups achieve, without RS that explicitly credit them we have to assume that it's original research. I actually had to remove the entire section since it's sourced to the GuideStar section that was self-reported. You can re-add it, but it must be written by someone that isn't affiliated with the organization, ie not primary. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Now all of that said, I'm concerned with the sourcing. Most of it is primary, meaning that it's written by the organization or by people affiliated with them. Here are the ones that aren't on the organization's website or the Walmart site:

HuffPo. This is an interview, which tends to be somewhat depreciated as a source. I don't particularly agree with that, but it's something to be careful about. Also, this looks to be the HuffPo blog, which also tends to be greatly, greatly depreciated as a source - if it's considered a RS at all.
EG Citizen. This looks to be a press release, which would make it a primary source. You can tell by the way that it's phrased and set up, since most press releases have an "about ____" section at the bottom with a website link. You can compare the way this was written to this press release sent out by the organization.
OC Register. This one looks good, as it's written more like an article. It does sort of feel like it's based on a press release, but not so much that it'd be a huge issue. Be careful about local sources since yep - you guessed it - they tend to be depreciated by a lot of people since local sources will write about local things. I don't see this being a huge-huge issue in this area since it'd be hard to get a non-local source about this given that it's throughout California.
OC Register. This one looks to be either a PR reprint or so heavily based on one that it'd likely be quickly seen as unusable. It doesn't have the "about" setup, but is otherwise written to resemble a press release.

In the end these sources are fairly weak, so I'd recommend finding some stronger sourcing since I'm not sure that this would survive an AfD based on the current sourcing. One of the best ways to do this is to provide academic sourcing, since those tend to be seen as extremely strong. If you can find a journal that mentions this organization as influential, that'd be a slam dunk as long as it wasn't written by someone affiliated with the organization and/or wasn't funded by them. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:36, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate the time you took to go through and point out your concerns. This organization is the third largest non-profit in Orange County, down just barely from #2 last year, according to the Dec. 7, 2015 issue of the Orange County Business Journal (ocbj.com). The ranking is behind a subscriber paywall, or I'd source it. (I downloaded a pdf copy and can email it to you if you'd like - please contact me if so). According to the listing, in 2015 THINK Together brought in $63M in revenue, has 189 paid staffers and served over 41,000 students with their programs. That doesn't call for a speedy deletion, but rather a more measured response such as this discussion we are having here. I was going to go and improve the article but see that you already made some edits - thanks. The Amazon link was to prove there was a book and I never would have thought it to be promotional, but I see how it could be interpreted that way. Perhaps in general there's a book database I could reference instead, but the Barth interview should suffice. I'll also put out a Google alert and be on the lookout for more news to add, including academic references as you suggest. Afterschool education doesn't seem to be a sexy area for reporters, regardless of the work the group is doing. Also, unlike a well-funded corporation with a full time PR staff, a non-profit is unlikely to spend any time building relationships with writers to get press coverage, and their clients, schools, are not going to do so either. To your question of my COI, I have no affiliation with this group. I have read the founder's book and noticed they didn't have an article. It was my contribution to their efforts, and a way to help them get more visibility for their good work. Nothing I wrote is anything but info that is freely available to everyone. You can Google them and see everything on the first few pages of the results. Thanks again for your fair and thoughtful response.Timtempleton (talk) 19:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WorldCat is a good site to use as far as existence goes (although I didn't see it listed offhand), but generally we don't entirely need to prove that a book or work exists in which I mean that it doesn't necessarily need to be sourced if it can be proven via a search or mention in another source like the interview. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:32, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]