User:Schoe043/sandbox

Article Evaluation: FCC fairness doctrine[edit]

Evaluating content

I think everything included in the article was relevant. However, I was a little confused by the "Formal revocation" section stating that the FCC removed the Fairness Doctrine in 2011, when it was stated that FCC had voted to abolish the doctrine in 1987 and the corollary rules were repealed in 2000. I think it should be stated more clearly that while the Doctrine was no longer in effect, it was to officially takeit off the books.

I think the "Reinstatement considered" section could also be better worded such that it does not appear as if this is a partisan issue because it is not. The way the information is currently presented, it seems as if the Democrats support the Fairness Doctrine and Republicans oppose it, but as you read further down, it's stated that President Obama did not support the Doctrine.

Lastly, the article could have better addressed the chilling effect that the Doctrine had on news coverage of controversial subjects; news station simply chose not to talk about controversial issues. They do have one sentence and a large block quote, but the formatting could be better such that a reader would better understand the consequences.

Evaluating tone

The article is fairly neutral. There is one part that could be slightly problematic and that is the "Public opinion" section. This section is about public opinion regarding the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, but it only includes one poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports. There have been criticisms against Rasmussen Reports for sampling bias that is conservative-leaning, so it could be helpful to include more polls on the Fairness Doctrine if possible.

Evaluating sources

At least three of the sources that I clicked on were no longer valid links (42, 60, and 64).

In addition, some of the sources are a bit dubious. The Washington Times is cited twice, but the newspaper has been accused of being biased and has been associated with white supremacy. This is not noted on the page.

However, most sources have a relevant and reliable reference.

Checking the talk page

It doesn't look like this talk page has been very active since 2009. However, when the talk page was more active, it looks like there were a lot of issues of bias when writing this article. The article was designated a C-class with a completeness score of 69. It is associated with WikiProject Law, Conservatism, United States/Government/Public Policy, and Radio. This Wikipedia article discusses this topic differently by not really addressing questions like: What were the consequences of the Fairness Doctrine on news coverage? Rather this article provides a lot of primary source quotes, as mentioned in one of the comments on the talk page, but does not provide any analysis.

Article Selection

The article I am looking at is the National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie.

I think overall, the content is relevant to the topic, but it leaves major gaps in information about background for the case and what happened during the case. I think this article could have a much better developed background section to give the reader a better sense of the historical context surrounding the events that lead to a Supreme Court case. In addition, very little is said about the actual ruling handed down by the Supreme Court.

I think that the background could be written more clearly. Right now, it is not clear as to what the situation was in Marquette Park versus in Skokie. The organization is confusing and switches between information about Skokie and Marquette Park. I would not only like to elaborate on background information, but also make the presentation of information more sequential to make it easier to read. In addition, it is confusing that there is a background section as well as a "prior... history" section.

Each claim has a citation, but there are only 11 citations in total and it is a very short article. I think that there should be more sources and a better survey of the scholarship surrounding these events. The only book that is cited was a self-published book, so I think I could incorporate more secondary sources; not only books, but also surveying more news articles as this article only looks at The New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

Looking at the talk page, there has been very little activity (three headings total). The most recent conversation was about how the court split in the ruling and it seems as if that issue was resolved between the users.

Sources for My Chosen Article

Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Must We Defend Nazis?: Hate Speech, Pornography, and the New First Amendment. New York: NYU Press, 1997.

Downs, Donald Alexander. Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985.

Hamlin, David. The Nazi/Skokie Conflict: A Civil Liberties Battle. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980.

Neier, Aryeh. Defending My Enemy: American Nazis, the Skokie Case, and the Risks of Freedom. 1st ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.

Strum, Philippa. When the Nazis Came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech We Hate. [Lawrence, Kan.]: University Press of Kansas, 1999.

Other Potential Articles

Pornographic magazine

I have a very specific topic that I was interested in regarding pornographic magazines and that is the flash press. I could not find anything on the flash press besides the Wikipedia article on the book titled, The Flash Press. I'm curious about a lack of an article about the flash press, otherwise known as sporting papers, which were published from 1841-43 and contained erotic material and information about brothels.

Evaluating Content

The content within this article is relevant, but poorly organized. I think there should headings that divide magazines by region which will help with the tone, which I evaluate below. I also think one of the headings could include information on the flash press which were newspapers from 1841-43 that included erotica and information about the red light districts. It is an earlier specific example of pornographic magazines and could delve into the different papers including the Flash, the Libertine, and the Whip.

Evaluating Tone/Evaluating Sources

There is a heavy bias towards British pornographic magazines. And over half of the citations have to do with British sources, making this page very misleading because it makes sweeping generalizations about the topic, but they are actually more specific statements that are relevant to a region. Two of the source links are broken. I think this article could use more secondary sources because the most cited source is a book by Michael S. Kimmel, but as I have stated above, there are other books such a The Flash Press, that explore different forms of pornographic magazines that have been left out on the page because nobody has really evaluated additional sources for this page.

Talk Page

This article is rated C-Class. There are a total of three comments on the page, none having to do with the flash press. One of the comments from 2013 seems to be unhelpful as it is an unsubstantiated claim that has more to do with pornography videos. It is a level-5 vital article in Society, a High-importance article for Wikimagazine, and Top-importance article for WikiProject Pornography. Unlike class, where we discuss how certain genres have been subject to censorship, this page does not really discuss attempts to censor pornographic magazines, though I would imagine these attempts exist. I think there could be a section discussing public opinion and legislation regarding these magazines.

Comstock Laws

Evaluating Content

This article uses large swathes of U.S. Law and just pasted it in, which is very distracting. They are very long and do not offer any summary. In addition, in the Origin section, the subsection, the YMCA, makes no sense and only loosely links to the Comstock Laws in terms of discussion of obscenity. My suggestion would be to cut out the section because it is irrelevant.

In addition, there are entire sections copied and pasted from articles that date from the early 20th century. I'm not sure if they are covered by copyright law, but either way, I think their arguments should be paraphrased.

The writing is very confusing as well and could be more concise. For example, in the first sentence of the Contraception arguments, the article states: "The Comstock laws, in an alleged "haphazard and capricious"  manner, restricted contraception." I'm not sure who is stating the "haphazard and capricious" manners. The article favors using "etc." as well which I think should be used more conservatively; rather than using etc. the article should state the other items in the list.

Evaluating Tone

The article seems to be heavily focused on contraception when discussing the objective of the laws, despite the fact that the laws target more than just contraception. I think this partly has to do with a lack of diverse sources, since the sources that are used have to do with birth control.

Evaluating Sources

This article relies heavliy on one book: Mary Ware Dennet's Birth Control Laws: Shall we keep them, change them, or abolish them, which was published in 1926. Dennet was a founder of The National Birth Control League, so she clearly has a bias in favor of birth control and contraception, a target of the laws. Therefore, there needs to be a diversification in sources; especially secondary sources.

Talk Page

This article is rated Start-class. In 2017, someone stated that they would start major revisions and that involved including much of Dennet's work into the article. The commenter believed Dennet to be a reliable sources. They noted her bias on the Talk page, but not in the article, which is unhelpful to readers. Otherwise, people haven't really been active on the Talk Page and not many issues have been found with it. This is a mid-importance project for WikiProject Pornography and a low-importance project for WikiProject United States and Philately Wikiproject. This page like the Fairness Doctrine, does not really address the question that we ask in class: What are the historical consequences of the Comstock Laws on American society? I think this is partly because it can be hard to trace historical causality, but also because the page lacks a lot of summaries on analysis regarding the Comstock Laws, instead choosing to copy and paste passages contemporary to the Comstock Laws.

National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie Edits

Week 5 Exercise

Rather than supporting a statement with my source, I edited a claim made in the article since I found it to be erroneous. This was the original sentence: In the predominantly Jewish community, one in six residents was a Holocaust survivor or was directly related to one. However, this statement comes from a self-published book that provides to citation to the data the author used to come up with this statistic. According to Philippa Strum, there is no way to corroborate this statement as there is "no official population register by religious affiliation in the United States." Strum argues that the numbers do not matter, but it is important to note that "a large proportion of Skokie's population was Jewish" and a many of them were Holocaust survivors.

• I have edited this on the Wikipedia page adding: Skokie was home to a significant number of Jewish people, many of them survivors of the Holocaust.