Talk:BlackPast.org

Potential COI
Single purpose account WP:SPA creating one article about a web-based organization and then introducing multiple links to that article in African American history articles not mentioning the organization and making no other edits adding any information about African American history suggest a possible conflict of interest WP:COI. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 18:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I have added sources and an additional reference, and removed any text that could be considered bias. I'm hoping this is now acceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cwgarner (talk • contribs) 22:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

For clarity, I am one of the 500 pro bono historians who have researched and written entries to blackpast.org. Cwgarner (talk) 23:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your candor in identifying your relationship with the organization you are writing about here. In the article, you wrote: "In addition to marketing the site on Facebook and Twitter, the organization began income-generation activities in 2009...." Did you participate in that or similar marketing? Is the creation of this article on Wikipedia similar marketing? Much of the article reads like marketing in that it provides uniformly positive assessments of the website/organization even when making use of references that have included critical or balancing assessment such as the JAH review that while mostly positive also identified "omissions" and described the website as a "work in progress". This reference which you cited as the basis for all the lead material, and for which you did not provide a url even though it is available on the web (and you have provided other urls) did not include any information supporting claims to be the "largest" such website or anything supporting "The website has a global audience of about two million visitors per year from over 100 nations. In 2009, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Brazil, and Germany ranked as the top five countries in visitors to the site after the United States." Likewise, the brief AHA review you cite in the history section contains no information supporting "On February 1, 2007, the new Drupal-based website was launched with a small ceremony in the University of Washington History Department. The site opened with approximately 600 entries, 100 speeches, 80 full text primary documents and seven major timelines. New sections that were added included New Perspectives, a section that featured accounts and descriptions of important but little known events in African American history. In 2007, the site surpassed the 455,000 mark in annual visits with over 12.7 million hits." These two examples do not leave me with a high degree of confidence that other citations to non-web-available sources will support the sections for which they are cited. Most of the history section appears to be drawn from the organizations website and should be pared down/replaced with cites to independent WP:RS reliable sources. The "Significant achievements section is, right now, a list of product offerings. On conflicts of interest, be advised that being paid by an organization is not a required element of having a conflict of interest. As WP:COI makes clear, "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." If your goal is to promote this organization (which does seem like a good one in my opinion, by the way) rather than to create a neutral encyclopedia, you have a conflict of interest. I suggest reading the policy and asking yourself if you can/want to comply with how to avoid COI editing. Regards. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

To clarify this once again, I am one of the hundreds of volunteer researchers/writers that have contributed entries to BlackPast.org. I have never been involved in any promotional activities on social sites like Facebook or Twitter for this or any other organization, and I have never received any compensation from Blackpast.org. I have a long history of performing countless volunteer and pro bono services for nonprofit organizations in the field of education, and none of those activities have involved advertising, promotion or public relations. Further, I have nothing to gain from the publication of the BlackPast.org entry on Wikipedia. My intent for this entry was to tell the story of the development of a unique educational resource and perhaps inspire others to do the same. Having said that, I have struggled, as you can see, from the lack of published information on the organization to use as sources. I agree with you that relying on an organization's website for statistics can be limiting, and I will continue to pursue additional sources. I will clean up the positioning of the footnote numbers to align more properly with the sourced material in an effort to improve your confidence in the article.Cwgarner (talk) 22:34, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I also don't understand why this entry is being held to higher standards than other entries. For instance the entry for Special Libraries Association only has one footnote, at the end of the article, and it refers to the organization's website. All of the external links are back to the organization's website as well. Please provide feedback on this apparent inconsistency.GreeneJeans 12:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cwgarner (talk • contribs)


 * I appreciate your answering the question about participating in marketing activities, and I believe you, and I did not doubt that your participation with the organization has been pro bono. Many non-profits do enlist such help in marketing themselves on social-networking sites and Wikipedia has had to work with such campaigns in the past. We also have a tendency aside from marketing to write very positive articles about organizations we like. I'm just one editor. I've never seen the SLA's article here and probably never will. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments are natural but not persuasive. This article came to my attention when the link to this entry was added to a number of African American history articles I follow, in a way that looked a lot like advertising. Looking at the article here, it too read much like advertising copy brought over directly from the organization's website. I was most concerned when the the first two references cited in footnotes that I checked did not support the text for which they were cited. That was a big red flag for me. I see that you have now cited the material to the organization's website, and I thank you for that. It makes it much easier to verify the material WP:V, and for readers to evaluate it if they know where it is coming from. The major issue for the article now is that while it lists a number of independent references, the text is highly reliant on the organization's own website. Such a website can be a WP:RS source for information about the organization (particularly founders, organizational info, etc.), but it should not be the primary source for the whole article. Can some of the history section be redrafted so that it relies on the independent sources? Can the listing of informational offering be reworded to rely more directly on the independent reviews? The organization (which again, looks to me like a good one) acknowledges that it is marketing itself to attract advertisers, so the more the article can draw on neutral sources, the more value it provides to our readers. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2010 (UTC)