Talk:CitizenGO

I think this article should be redone.
No corresponds to a neutral view of the organization and is obsessively focused on LGBT issues.

There are a mistake in organization's name, CitizenGO, not CitizenGo. The only way to solve this I think is the redirect.

I change the infobox type PadreElías (talk) 12:55, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia. As this is your third edit, I would recommend that you familiarise yourself with the five pillars of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a place for self-promotion, advertising, PR or propaganda and editors must disclose if they are paid for any contributions they make to Wikipedia (I edit wikipedia as an individual citizen, and all of my contributions are my own and I am not paid by any orgaisation for any of my edits).
 * Wikipedia cannot include loaded phrases designed to promote organisations. Wikipedia values reliable sources that are nationalistically independent from their funding sources and objective in their reporting, such as academic sources, particularly in articles on controversial topics. Also, note that the Wikimedia foundation's projects exist to "serve the Information Needs of Individuals, Not Groups" ""it is important to note as essential the principle that Wikimedia projects exist to serve individuals, as individuals, in their full autonomy, and consequently, the projects, as a general rule, do not and should not consider as legitimate censorious demands by institutions, of any kind, political, commercial or voluntary claiming to represent those individuals, or making demands, which, in the community’s opinion, represent only their own interests""


 * The changes you have made to this article are not in keeping with Wikipedia guidelines. You are welcome to create a fork of the article with your own point of view and improve the article until it is closer to meeting Wikipedia's standards. I have placed your version of this in my sandbox, and will revert this back to the previous version, then include your additions back in, including criticism of the organisation while avoiding a dedicated section. -- Aronzak (talk) 12:48, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I've merged some of your content into the article. Sections that are written like an advertisement, or don't include citations, or don't attribute statements to the people that said them were removed in the merge. The earlier version is in the history, or on my sandbox -- Aronzak (talk) 14:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I added information about the right to life--Hofmeister318 (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The Associated Press style guide recommends using the terms 'anti-abortion' and 'abortion rights' to describe sides of the Abortion debate without using political framing techniques. There is some contention with these terms, with anti-abortion side of the debate not wanting to be labelled as 'anti'. -- Aronzak (talk) 23:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I modify information about abortion and euthanasia. This article had ben vandaliced by Aronzak, introducing terms as "bombing" to describe sending emails to MEPs by citizens, which is a partisan manipulation of the article. Moreover, although Associated Press have his views on the adjectives that should apply to the pro-life movement, delete the definition that movement used to define themselves only be interpreted as an act of partisan censorship. Wikipedia should not be used to censor ideas or terms that dislike to a user or to distort reality according to his views, but to gather the facts. Talk of "abortion rights" is taking sides on an issue that affects human lives, taking a partisan stance in favor of so-called "pro-choice" or pro-abortion movement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HughTemple (talk • contribs) 04:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I deleted paragraph about Scott Lively petition. CitizenGO's TOS say: "CitizenGO.org acts solely as a Service which provides communication between the parties, and is not not responsible for any content contrary to the general conditions which could be sent by the parties". So CitizenGO is not responsible for the particular requests that publish their users. Tick this here is as published in the entry of Change.org that this website hosted petitions against abortion, hiding those posted by individuals and that the website is not responsible for them. These texts introduced by Aronzak induce deception and have a clearly partisan intent. HughTemple (talk • contribs) 04:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia uses citations from reliable sources, not original research. Do not remove cited and relevant information. If you can find a reliable source that contradicts one used in an article, add that, but do not add original research. Wikipedia uses reliable secondary sources that are independent of the primary sources they reference. -- Aronzak (talk) 11:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Capitalization changed. --Error (talk) 17:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

CitizenGO is not responsible of the contents of petitions created by its users
CitizenGO has not created any petition in favor of Scott Lively. It was the "Committee to Elect Scott Lively" the entity that created the petition. You can see clearly at the petition page who is the creator of the petition: http://www.citizengo.org/en/608-nominate-true-conservative-governor

There you can read that the petition was created "By Committee to Elect Scott Lively · 10/28/2013".

Actually, any individual or organization can create a petition at CitizenGO filling up a very simple form: http://www.citizengo.org/en/create-your-petition

No prior censorship. I encourage you to create a petition, you will find out that the petition is automatically published. I did it the other day.

Further, in the petition created by the "Committee to Elect Scott Lively" (and any other user-generated petition) you can read the following text: "This petition has been created by a citizen or association not affiliated with Citizen GO. Citizen GO is not responsible of its contents." This text does not appear in petitions created by CitizenGO...

And there are hundreds of petitions created by CitizenGO that you can highlight to show the platform's ideas and values. You don't need to pick one petition created by another organization not affiliated with CitizenGO at all, you have plenty of petitions actually created by CitizenGO you can choose: www.citizengo.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.47.160.113 (talk) 09:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia uses citations from reliable sources, not original research. Do not remove cited and relevant information. If you can find a reliable source that contradicts one used in an article, add that, but do not add original research. -- Aronzak (talk) 11:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Centroeuropa keeps on reverting my changes without any reason
Furthermore, Centroeuropa shows a hateful attitude towards CitizenGO, both at Wikipedia and at his website (linked at his Wikipedia User page).

Most of his contributions to the CitizenGO entry are either false or manipulations. For instance, he says that CitizenGO has been questioned by the bishop of Toledo and the bishop of Getafe. In reality, the bishop of Toledo and the bishop of Getafe have never mentioned CitizenGO in any of his documents or speeches. Only the auxiliary bishop of Getafe, José Rico, a friend of Centroeuropa (according to his Website), mentioned in an interview CitizenGO.

Another example: he says that the bishops questioned CitizenGO "for being controlled by members of the Mexican secret organization El Yunque". In reality, the auxiliary bishop of Getafe, in an interview, mentioned the alleged presence (but not control) of members of El Yunque.

If we read the two official statements by the bishop of Getafe and the bishop of Toledo on the issue, CitizenGO is never mentioned. That's why I understand that this "controversy" should not appear on the Wikipedia page of CitizenGO.

Carlos B Montoya (talk) 13:10, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Why adding new information was reverted?
Foundation origin is relevant in this article, and also knowing all the members of the Board of Directors CounterYUnit (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

CitizenGo linked to El Yunque
This article states that "The foundation [referring to CitzenGo] has ties to El Yunque.

However, the Wikipedia site on El Yunque ends with the statement, "There is no evidence that this organization exists." One must question how ties can be be proven between CitizenGo and an organisation that is not even proven to exist. Itsdale (talk) 03:38, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Russian agent
from vk.com her name Александра Машкова - Благих

Consider more thorough revision of article as a whole
The article suggests editorial bias, please.

From the introduction, which immediately depicts the group as ULTRA-conservative, ULTRA-catholic (and I had to wonder what that even meant -in context of course), etc., to the overall outlay which seemed to talk about campaigns AGAINST practically everything. It was curious that even the introduction could barely find a single reference to the group itself. It may have been nicer to find at least one citation of the group itself if we are introducing a group. Surely, if we could dig up so many articles which are largely from blogs and newspapers (some of which are already apparently set out against the group), it may be only fair to try hide our bias behind a few "counter-balanced contents/citations?

I think another look at Wikipedia's core principles may show this article seems to be in overt violation of neutral point of view and verifiability.

Regarding neutral point of view, someone suggested creating a forking. I think this may not be appropriate, as the policy states:

"A POV fork is an attempt to evade the neutrality policy by creating a new article about a subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. POV forks are not permitted on Wikipedia. All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article."

Regarding verifiability, there are issues around objectivity of sources; and citing a number of non-English sources, especially on delicate areas (without clearly pointing out the evidence).

It apparently contains quite a number of problematic citations and hence my caution with deleting a number of content here and there or inserting a hundred citations just in an attempt at balancing the weight of information. Hence my suggestion of a possible overhaul, IF there are no nicer ways of creating a balance?

Thank you. Xtologic (talk) 21:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * @Xtologic I find it *very* curious as to why your entire edit history has been devoted to this article, including disputing the stated ideological description that is backed up to multiple cited sources, and inserting a section alleging work against "police brutality" while omitting context (i.e. transphobia) that was mentioned |access-date=2023-09-02 in the very citation you included that linked back to the organization's own website. Iostn (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment with the interesting introduction about my edit history. Please feel free to let me know your inference from that and/or the purpose of your introduction.
 * Having noticed the significant lean of the article at the time I read it, I think that made me question the citations. Some discussion with some resolution was had around that elsewhere on the talk page.
 * Regarding the inserted section, do you have evidence to think there was no work done against police brutality, or why have you called it an allegation? I'm not sure which article you were referring to, but the cited source implied the posters were not transphobic. That was the context in that article. Please let me know how transphobia was used in the one you found. Nevertheless, the section was about police brutality which was reported in the source. Is that in question? How far do you want contexts explained for every part of the whole article and should we apply that principle across board which may produce long and tortuous articles?
 * Thank you. 👍 Xtologic (talk) 19:35, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Review done 06.02.2023
Introduction may more appropriately report what the organisation stands for. This may then be balanced by other reports as in Wikipedia's NPOV. An introductory overemphasis based on apparent opponents may be misconstrued as editorial bias. Kindly consider a more balanced report. Thank you.

First reference was a non-specific one to a German website. Please refer to the Wikipedia guideline on citing non-English sources -Wikipedia:Verifiability - Wikipedia sub-heading 4.2. The reference to opendemocracy.net was allowed largely because they seem to be established. Though they seem to show editorial bias against CitizenGO looking at a couple of articles they published, this does not exclude their use in referencing as per Wikipedia guidelines. It is perhaps down to us to try minimize our own editorial bias in expressing their report. The reference to time.com I found was a sentence which appeared to be a repetition of opendemocracy's wording, and hence an over-representation of data.

I welcome thoughts please, and we can always review further. Xtologic (talk) 22:07, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

All mainstream sources depict the group as such and are given preference. If you object to a particular reference we can find more, the group is almost always referred as ultra-conservative in the mainstream press. The slogan or self-definition of a group should not be included in the lead. In fact, I think it was even removed from the sidebox. Cardnewman (talk) 16:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Cardnewman,
 * When you say all mainstream sources, what kinds of sources are you referring to -books, journals, organizations?
 * Also, when dealing with sensitive areas, it is advised to more carefully consider the perspectives, and weight of evidence should reflect.
 * I do not object to a reference. References to a different language may be used but in the way Wikipedia policy explains. If there are a lot of Spanish references, perhaps, you may consider working more on the Spanish?
 * When you say "we can find more", who are the "we"?
 * Regarding including a group's stated description: kindly keep in mind Wikipedia is not an original publication site but representation of knowledge. I do not recollect Wikipedia's policy stating that an organisation's website can't be used. I have used the quote as advised in the policy.
 * Further, I did not remove the aspect of ultra-conservative. So I am not sure why you seem particular about that.
 * Finally, please, the talk page is for considerations. Kindly present your thoughts and please allow for some time before going ahead to make major edits or articles may be subject to inconsistencies. Thank you. Xtologic (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your answer. Even though we disagree, you are very polite and that's great.
 * There are also journals that refer to the organziation as ultraconservative like https://academic.oup.com/sp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/sp/jxad001/7030764.
 * Yeah, but Spanish references are okay, we simply should give preference to the English ones.
 * I was using a majestic plural. We, "the editors", sorry for the confusion,
 * I don't disagree with including the organization's motto and self-description. As I said I think it was in the sidebox but some editors remove it. What I object to is to include it in the lead.
 * Cardnewman (talk) 11:49, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello.
 * I suppose there would be little point to Wikipedia and perhaps getting along in life if we automatically assume every other person always has a malicious agenda or simply lives to win arguments? 😀
 * Hmm. Again, I was never against the mention of ultra-conservative. That's an established opinion and should be included in Wikipedia.
 * As for non-English sources: did you maybe interpret differently that Wikipedia article I linked to (in my 06.02.2023 comment) about how Non-English sources may be used in an English article? It helps to play along with the policies, and they are generally not meant to be subject to editorial consensus. It seems you also kept one or two duplicated content (like the times.com).
 * Re: majestic plural :- Ah, right! Thanks for clarifying. 🙂
 * Re: self-description in the intro :- Again, I am not aware of a policy on this. Kindly show me if there is.
 * I think it flows naturally if one is presenting a body and one refers to the aims it has stated it wants to achieve. This is done in other articles, like for red cross (ICRC), American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Center for Inquiry, etc. Honestly, it's easy to think that suggests bias, but again, we are to try present information outside of Wikipedia. And, I thought my presentation it clear it was the aim the organisation stated. I suppose that should sound less biased than if I had spelt it out as though it was a widely accepted fact.
 * So, we may open with that, and then can follow up with what others have reported -in order to try balance it out. That's a less adversarial presentation, I think. Xtologic (talk) 19:40, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * English sources take precedence but non-English sources are A-Okay.
 * In Wikipedia, secondary sources and reporting also takes preference before self-description, an example of this philosophy can be seen in the article of Alliance Defending Freedom: in the lead is mentioned "that works to curtail rights for LGBTQ people" even though the organisation rejects such view.
 * I don't know what else to say, I think your proposal edits are not proper. Perhaps you can seek dispute resolution in order for more people to give their opinion. Cardnewman (talk) 15:30, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi,
 * Thanks for your reply. I had to look again and indeed in the policy, it shows there is preference for third party reports. As for dispute resolution, thanks for that concession but it would not be necessary for me to go that route where there is a Wiki policy on the matter. Wiki policies can't just be tossed aside even when there is editorial consensus on a matter. So, I suppose we are okay with the intro. Thanks.
 * Regarding non-English sources: again, I never said they were not allowed but ,in line with the policy on verifiability I mentioned previously, the relevant portions of the source should be specified and translated.
 * This also helps in addressing weight of evidence due to duplication of facts.
 * I will allow some time for this to be done. If this is difficult to address, I think the citations that are not in line with the policy may need to be removed. This would apply to the duplicated facts also.
 * Cheers. Xtologic (talk) 20:06, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I have include the statement in the second paragraph.
 * Cardnewman (talk) 11:56, 18 February 2023 (UTC)