Talk:38 Degrees

Deletion
I'm removing the deletion warning I think this gives notability for a number of reasons. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/08/kay-burley-sky-news-twitter

This indicates not only was there a newsworthy incident involving them but also the incident happened as part of a news event about them. Lerc (talk) 07:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On notability.
An editor has, rather improbably, repeatedly tagged this article as potentially non-notable per our general notability guideline. This is in spite of its subject having gained "significant coverage" in multiple reliable independent sources such as The Daily Telegraph, the BBC News site, The Guardian, WalesOnline, The Big Issue, The Observer, and Daily Mail. Furthermore, a brief scan of their "Media Coverage" page reveals a further half-dozen stories from The Guardian (though for the sake of argument, let's assume the stricter interpretation of the general notability guideline, that "[m]ultiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability"), five from The Independent, three from The Ecologist magazine, and one apiece from the Sky News website, The Zimbabwean, the Sunderland Echo, the Stourbridge News, and the Runcorn and Widnes Weekly News (a Trinity Mirror paper).

If those 19 extra stories from eight different media outlets don't sway you (14 different media outlets if you count the ones that are already in the article), i'm sure i could trawl Google News and find a few more that aren't mentioned either in the article or on 38 Degrees' "Media Coverage" page (quite apart from the fact that there appear already to be easily enough reliable independent sources to pass the general notability guideline, as i have already suggested). i have to travel to another city in a couple of hours, but in the meantime will endeavour to add some of these extra sources i've found to the article, lest anyone be somehow yet unpersuaded.  tomasz.  13:34, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate link
Someone has stuck an 'S' at the end of the article and referenced it to a Facebook page. Unless a valid reason can be given as to why this is there I will take it off. --AlexR4444 (talk) 14:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The 'S' looks to have been a minor editing error made by another editor in the process of debiasing the article. The reference is, however, probably no longer needed, as it was being used to support the statement "[s]ome activists have accused them of producing misleading campaign literature, raising concerns through their Facebook page", which has now been removed anyway. Even without considering the vagaries of Facebook's legitimacy as a source.  tomasz.  15:09, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

David Mitchell article
I have removed the link to this article, which was placed in the "controversies" section. The original article does not challenge 38 degrees, it is a satirical attack on George Osborne's tax avoidance, which includes some comedic references to 38 Degrees. It concludes "Is George Osborne doing what he thinks is right? He claims to be. When he's minimising his tax liability, I don't think he's doing anything wrong. But when he frames legislation which he knows, from personal experience, leaves rich people's unneeded money untaxed while public services are stripped to the bone, how can he think that's right?".Harrumpher (talk) 11:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sure I'm with you on this. The line you removed from the "controversies" section, "Observer columnist David Mitchell took issue with its [38 Degrees's] targeting of George Osborne for legally avoiding tax", seems perfectly valid, reading the article. AWhiteC (talk) 19:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Original research
The content restored in this edit was originally removed by me as original research. I'll accept that the policy does allow limited use of primary sources (WP:PRIMARY), but in the case the source in question is a user-transcribed quotation taken from a video of a debate which will soon vanish from BBC iPlayer. It therefore fails the 'reliably published' requirement in WP:PRIMARY and WP:CHALLENGE. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As an additional point, I don't like the way that we have two bullet points making essentially the same criticism, which seems to me like giving it undue weight. At the very least (not my preferred outcome) they should be merged into one. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 19:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed that the two bullet points make effectively the same criticism and ought to be merged (unless the second point – re Eleanor Laing – is removed altogether). On that point, I don't understand why it is seen as original research, except that when I clicked the reference ([26]) it gave a 404 message. AWhiteC (talk) 23:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I was mainly thinking of the words 'The term "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material... for which no reliable, published source exists' from the Original Research policy in my earlier comments. On reflection, I think the issue is more one of verifiability than OR, although there is a lot of overlap between the two. As I said above, a video on iPlayer is not a stable source, and it has now indeed become impossible for anyone to verify what Laing actually said. The bullet point is OK in that it just reproduces a quotation rather than draw additional unsourced inferences from it, but I'd much prefer it if we had a good secondary source to support the point. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 00:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes
I reverted the last two edits for the following reasons. Please discuss here before editing the article. AWhiteC (talk) 20:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Change from "progressive" to "left-wing". I think a citation is needed to back up this change. As far as I can remember, 38 Degrees describes itself as progressive on its website.
 * 2) Sorry for taking out the sentence "It was inspired by group's such as George Soros' MoveOn campaign and holds similar positions.". The reason is that "MoveOn" already appears in the next section of the article.
 * 3) I reinstated the Eleanor Laing criticism because this has been in and out already, and I am not clear that it is valid to remove it. Let's have a discussion about it here.
 * You will see that I already initiated a discussion about the Eleanor Laing criticism in the section above. Perhaps you would like to start things off by responding to my points? NotFromUtrecht (talk) 19:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Somebody still seems to want to change "progressive" to "left-wing" in the introduction. I have reverted again for the same reasons as before (see above). Please discuss here before making that change again. AWhiteC (talk) 22:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * "progressive" is a meaningless term in politics, as groups from all parts of the spectrum use the term about themselves. 'Left wing' however, has a clear and widely understood meaning in UK politics, and 38D very obviously falls into that camp. I've not made any edits on this issue, but wonder why AWhiteC prefers a meaningless term to an accurate one? Heenan73 (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * "Progressive" is how they describe themselves (the last time I looked, which was months ago). A change to something else would require a citation. It's not meaningless; it means "of progress" (see Wikipedia). If you are still wondering whether that means left-wing or right-wing, how about trying to think outside the class-war box? AWhiteC (talk) 19:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * They need not be described as "left wing" as this may give the impression that they are beyond the centre ground and only interested in attracting a minority/fringe of voters. However, it would be accurate to say that they certainly have "left wing" sympathisers. If AWhiteC wants to use progressive and Heenan73 thinks that this is "pointless" surely this tells us more about British (Westminster) politian use of the term and not the term itself? ElizabethFry42 (talk) 00:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Controversies, manual of style and reliable sources.
Starting off with the title, this section is usually recommended to be merged into the main article -see WP:CSECTION. Much more importantly, some of the "sources" are just blogs which lack a newspapers oversight. We should be using reliable sources and ideally Suggested sources. Unreliable material needs to be scrapped and the reliable material expanded.

There is also a lot of WP:WEASEL wording, e.g Some disability rights campaigners ..  A number of government politicians .. Some Conservative sources .. Feel free to reply / help, we all want to improve the article and make sure it meets wp:npov criteria.

JRPG (talk) 15:17, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

True but it is a digital organsation and it can be criticised through blogs as way of gaining their attention. It could be argued that blogs are a valid form of criticism. Criticism of the organisation seems to be localised and not widespread owing to its size and influence so the wording might not be an issue. That said quantification of the number of people crticising would be useful. ElizabethFry42 (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. The vague references to critical opinion in poor quality sources, in the absence of any balancing opinion (or fact) leads to an article that reads vaguely negative without much reference to fact, or indication of balance of opinion. 212.56.108.45 (talk) 12:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Membership?
38 Degrees like to claim millions of members but these seem to just be people on their mailing list, which means anyone who has ever filled in one of their polls. Despite the terminology used by 38 Degrees, I don't feel it is appropriate to refer to this as membership. --Michig (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you have a suggested form of words, or a source of objective information on their membership statistics? AWhiteC (talk) 23:35, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't find reliable sources that discuss this, so no, but there are sources that we couldn't really use such as political blogs that discuss how anyone who contributes to one of their polls/petitions is then considered a 'member' until they get themselves off the mailing list. It isn't an organisation where people fill in a membership form saying 'I wish to join your organisation' - as this one states: "very few of the “members” do anything but sign the odd petition and agree to be on an email list". --Michig (talk) 20:03, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


 * It's true that the word "membership" or "members" are extremely misleading. I signed a petition and was soon being regularly sent emails breathlessly extolling their work and referring to me as one of their "members". I became increasingly annoyed, had to tell them several times to get me off their mailing list and that I was in no way whatsoever a "member" of their organisation. Another form of words? I'm not sure one is needed. There is no mass membership, and the numbers of their mailing list might indicate something, but quite possibly only the numbers on a mailing list and not supporters. "Membership" however, is surely not the word, that is entirely misleading. Ecadre (talk) 08:03, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Reliable sources?
Why do we have a blog by some councilor included? This fails wp:npov and wp:rs & should be removed. JRPG (talk) 16:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely. It's now 10 weeks since this problem was identified, no dissenting views. Surely time to act? 212.56.108.45 (talk) 12:07, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Odd entry in criticism section
"Some sources have accused 38 Degrees of being left-wing and of having links to the Labour Party"

Surely this is either a statement of fact or merely a point of view and not a criticism? As the "criticism" comes from a conservative group, this is simply what one would expect their opinion to be. Would it be a criticism to say "Some sources have accused 38 Degrees of being mothers and of having links to the Mumsnet"?86.128.64.58 (talk) 11:56, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The paragraph starting with that statement seems to me to be balanced and indeed informative. I would personally not be in favour of removing it. (And I am not repeat not a left-winger (nor a conservative).) Let other people have their say here before modifying the text. AWhiteC (talk) 22:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree: to pick out one opinion exclusively shows a degree of bias that does not befit Wikipedia. There is no counter-opinion in the article as a whole (e.g. transparency of funding, democratic connection etc) which manages to confine itself to fact, so it is strange to select one partisan opinion to report in the "criticism" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.56.108.45 (talk) 11:41, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

On balance I agree with the original poster who stated that this is an 'odd entry'. I admit it's a subtlety, but framing the claim that 38 Degrees has "links to the Labour Party", as an "accusation", without some kind of qualification within that opening sentence, ever so slightly undermines Wikipedia's neutrality because on cursory inspection it appears to suggest that having links to the Labour Party is in itself a feature worthy of criticism. Although the paragraph goes on to effectively explain the use of the term "accusation" by mentioning 38 Degrees' own claim that they are not affiliated to any political party, it would seem more balanced to insert this contextual information into the opening sentence of the paragraph, thus removing the possible inference on a cursory read that being left wing or affiliated to Labour is in itself a 'suspicious' thing one may be 'accused' of. Therefore I have now made this edit and also referenced 38 Degrees' page where their original/current claim is made. Trust that's to everybody's satisfaction. 138.253.77.147 (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

---

"The Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced last year that it had received 192,000 responses to a green paper asking for views on the future size and scope of the BBC, the results of which will form the evidence base for the government’s plans for the corporation’s new Royal Charter.

It has now emerged that 177,000 submissions – 92 per cent of all responses – were sent via 38 Degrees, a “campaigning community” that specialises in organising mass-emails to MPs.

The group told its three million members that ministers planned to “rip out the heart of the BBC”, by forcing the corporation to take adverts and ending its independence from government – neither of which are proposed in the green paper."

Daily Telegraph London 2016:01:23.

It is just, yet another, Marxist inspired group, using the dirty, underhand, tactics for which they are well known.

But it will not be appearing in Leftypedia any time soon. Because I refuse to waste my time adding it to the article only to have it deleted by Lenin & Co. AnnaComnemna (talk) 14:41, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on 38 Degrees. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.38degrees.org.uk/pages/the-team

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on 38 Degrees. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120317061358/http://www.the-vibe.co.uk/2010/08/11/one-tory-mp-v-38-degrees-why-raab-is-right to http://www.the-vibe.co.uk/2010/08/11/one-tory-mp-v-38-degrees-why-raab-is-right

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:35, 2 March 2016 (UTC)