Talk:Christmas controversies/Merge proposal

Merge proposal: All "no-christmas" content &rarr; Christmas controversies
Self nomination Many articles about retail chains, such as Best Buy (or a previous version of it), Kmart, Target Corporation, and History of Wal-Mart feature content that the retailer presently, or in the past, refuse to use the word "christmas" in its advertising. Within good faith I believe such articles are not where this content belongs, due to three main factors:


 * First, this is a criticism that is not unique to any specific retailer, but is targeted to many of them.
 * Second, in the context that all of this content appears in the articles, this pro-"Merry Christmas" campaign is always represented as a single organization's cowboy crusade.
 * Third, retailers tend to receive more serious criticisms besides those concerning its advertising campaign, such as lawsuits dealing with labor issues, unethical decisions that a specific retailer has made, etc.

As per the example on the essay policy proposal essay Criticism, criticisms of Christianity do not belong in the article on Christianity, but in the articles of Christian-critical groups and concepts. Thus, such "no-christmas" content does not belong in the articles about retailers, but in the article on the concept itself (although the other obvious option would be to merge this into American Family Association; however the article on the concept already exists). Given that the article Christmas controversies is an article detailing this concept, I propose the following changes:


 * Such content about this criticism should be merged into this article and left out of articles about retailers.
 * Instead of re-adding "no-christmas" content to articles about retailers, a link should be provided to Christmas controversies in its  section.  In this case, American Family Association also needs to be linked to this article, given that it is the retailing-critical group.

Please take the time to post your thoughts on this issue, and add the following to any other such affected retailer article talk page.

Tuxide 08:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * edit: Adding a third factor that I completely forgot about. Tuxide 03:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The criticism article you cited is not a policy, but a proposed policy. DanielFolsom T|C|U 03:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, Criticism was merely an essay of someone's opinion when I first wrote the above proposal. Since it is now a proposed policy I will change the wordage of the above.  The three main content policies on Wikipedia are WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV.  Tuxide 04:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Criticism is an essay again, I am changing it back. Tuxide 03:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with this proposal. But your poll links aren't working. They just go to a non-existant section on each separate talk page. I'm going to go fix the one at Talk:Target Corporation by subst'ing and then editing the link. You can see there how I did it and you can do it to the other templates you've left around. If you have any questions, ask me on my talk page. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 17:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah thanks for catching that, dunno how the template suggests that the poll should be on a separate talk page. It is the wordage on Poll/Closed that makes you think it has to be.  I went ahead and fixed the rest of them, as well as the code above.  Tuxide 18:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

views
To be fair, it makes sense to place this info on the Christmas Controversies page. It is ironic though that retailers are now said to be anti-Christmas, yet they themselves admit that up to 75% of their sales come from what they would now call the holiday season and much of that is Christian Christmas - I have seen advertising this year to be more inclusive of other faiths and even including some non-religious celebrations linked to the late December season. ALSO these same retailers that do not like the term Christmas use Easter (which is itself a more religious Christian Holiday) with no balking, but adding to their sales numbers. CHRISTMAS is more questioned in society in general in the United States - and being all inclusive or no-religion, not a retail issue as such - just a fact that retailers want to please all their customers. kidsheaven 00:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I feel a two-line mention in the companies' articles is a good compromise. Something like "In (year) (name of company) was criticized by (criticizer) for (whatever/wikilink to Christmas controversies). In response, (company) changed (whatever)." The way it is right now, articles such as Target Corporation have a huge paragraph on this issue, which is probably overkill. -newkai t-c 17:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Response to the "Two Main Factors"

 * First, this is a criticism that is not targeted to any specific retailer, but many of them.
 * This is the exact opposite of what is happening. The AFA is targeting a few specific companies since its previous attacks on retailers in general were not succeeding.


 * Second, in the context that all of this content appears in the articles, this pro-"Merry Christmas" campaign is always represented as a single organization's cowboy crusade.
 * It is not just the AFA doing this. The Catholic League and many journalists are among the critics.  148.87.1.170
 * Is this the same Catholic League you are referring to? If so, then I am adding the poll banner to its talk page.  We are interested in feedback to the proposed changes (the second set of bullet points).  Regards, Tuxide 21:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the premises behind your proposal are incorrect (see above), so I would advise against the changes. The no-Christmas criticisms should not be given a second-class status and banished to a separate article.  They should be integrated with the article on the targeted retailers.


 * Having a separate article in addition to the integrated criticisms is fine, since it is useful to the reader.148.87.1.170
 * So you are saying that sections like Target Corporation and Kmart are appropriate when its weight of such sections are compared to the rest of those articles (let alone the rest of the article's criticism section). Tuxide 03:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Consensus
From reading this page as well as the various criticism sections in the articles in question, I would say that a consensus has been reached: while it is appropriate to mention the articles in the Christmas Controversy page, there is no reason to remove the small controversy sections from the articles themselves. Perhaps some could be shortened, but is is fairly common in articles for a subject to be mentioned with a short description along with a link to an article that elaborates on said subject. In conclusion, while the length of some of the longer sections may be cut down, it is not appropriate to move them and leave only a "Christmas Controversy" link.Justanotherguy 20:42, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Objections? Else I'm closing this
If nobody objects by the end of March, I am going to do the following: This will allow the contributors to the individual articles to decide if a mere mention of the criticism fails WP:NPOV. If nothing else gets brought up by the end of this month, then I will end this discussion and do what I mentioned above when I have time to. Tuxide 05:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Move the paragraphs or sections in question from the History of Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target Corporation articles to Christmas controversy, and mark Christmas controversy as rewrite after the merger
 * Leave the Best Buy article as-is, since those who edit it consider the case of this retailer a separate issue
 * Include a sentence in the main Criticism paragraph of Kmart, Target Corporation, and Wal-Mart, briefly stating that the retailer has been criticized by the American Family Association for not using the word Christmas in its advertising, providing a wikilink to Christmas controversy where the detailed rationale on the subject is
 * Add a link to Christmas controversy in the  section of American Family Association and Catholic League