Talk:Alan Sears/Archive 1

POV dispute
I can understand removing biased material, but it looks like factual material was also deleted. Isn't it acceptable to quote from factual biographical material from his own website? See WP:SELFPUB - "Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves..." Do we really need a Department of Justice source to document that he worked for the Department of Justice? Mdmcginn (talk) 00:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I have lifted the second paragraph from Alliance Defense Fund. Not sure if it should be removed from there too. Bangers 14:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I am nominating this for a POV check because:

1. The websites cited do not appear to be neutral or reliable. One is the site of the organisation of which he is CEO, thus is not objective, and the other is a news site for which he writes. Neither appears neutral to me, they both seem to be conservatively biased to a great degree, although others may disagree. A lot of text appears in both sources, in some cases even word for word.

2. The article, seemingly uniformly, shows him in a good light and focuses mainly on the achievements mentioned on those sources. Nothing is mentioned of the controversy surrounding his views, which are no-doubt seen by some as extreme right-wing. As he co-wrote a book entitled 'The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today', it is hard to believe there are no criticisms that have been made of him in the press that are worthy of note on his wikipedia page, given the contentious nature of the topic. In fact, one only needs to look at the book's page on Amazon.com to find plenty of criticisms of his work (although I won't pretend for a second that Amazon.com is an appropriate source!)

--84.71.192.222 23:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I added the following hyperlinks as they seem to illustrate AS's basic positions very well:


 * The ACLU vs America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values, by the Alliance Defense Fund, Alan Sears, and Craig Osten, 2005. ISBN 0-8054-4045-3; 978-0-8054-4045-4 (sample chapter)
 * The ACLU Never Forgets Its Pro-Communist Roots by Alan Sears Asteriks 14:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Biography assessment rating comment
The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article.-- Jreferee 00:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's at least stop calling him by just hist first name
The thing sounds like a PR release with Alan this and Alan that. I'm going to change the references to "Alan" to "Mr. Sears" to make it (at least!) sound better.

It does, indeed, have some serious POV problems anyway, but at least it won't read like someone introducing him for a speech.

Perm Dude 02:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Trying to help fix NPOV issues
I just made a bunch of changes to the article. A list follows:

Issues of NPOV/Sources

 * The largest problems in the article stemmed from its inflated wording; thus, where there were complex structures that biased toward overly positive light, they were simply changed to their most basic meanings. Most of these changes are done through simply reducing them into their respective wiki links, which tends to eliminate word bias.
 * Most of this article comes from ADF's biography, thus I added the tag.  Please note that ADF's biography, at least in my opinion, is not a reliable, independent secondary source, since he runs the organization.

Rewordings

 * Constitutional law is the same as "First Amendment" issues. If he has expertise in first amendment issues, it should be cited.
 * Listing names (particularly those that are PhDs) inflated credibility unnecessarily under "Background," since it was redundant (as "founders" was sufficient).
 * Replaced all instances of "allies," as it is unnecessarily war-like in connotation.
 * "Numerous" ==> "several."
 * Removed redundant United States Attorney description.
 * Removed "Sears also wrote state and federal laws" since no assertion was given that he was a congressman.
 * Removed "20 states adopted his recommendations," since it's been unsourced and is extremely difficult to prove.
 * "the Vatican" ==> "Holy See," its proper name.

Structure

 * Fixed some grammatical issues.
 * De-capitalized unnecessarily-capitalized words.

Fact checks

 * "... largest religious liberty legal alliance" - Also still POV; for, how many "religious liberty legal alliances" are there in the US?
 * Places where there are big numbers should have cites.

Deletions

 * Removed non-notable book references ("The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today;" "The ACLU vs. America") and "Craig Osten."
 * Removed book spam. Please cite notability of the books, as this article establishes notability of the person based primarily on involvement with legal proceedings/organizational involvement-- not as an author.

In general

 * The article is still POV-y, but I think I trimmed a lot of the fat off of it for now. Please be sure to cite reliable sources when adding/altering information.

-- slakr \ talk / 04:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Composition of Families?
"...dealing with freedom of religion, abortion, marriage, and the composition of families." I suppose I understand the first three, but what, exactly does the last one mean? It seems excessively vague and oddly euphemistic. Is it in reference to gay adoption? If it's about (opposition to) gay-rights, then it should say so without the soft-pedaling. Grayfell (talk) 07:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Find sources

 * — Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * — Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * — Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:10, 1 May 2016 (UTC)