Talk:Kelly Townsend

Furry conversion fact?
In just within a day (May 5, 2018), there few stories  about her "converting" into Furry fandom after twitter fight over the political discussion. Chad The Goatman (talk) 00:05, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

"Local/Community Involvement" reads like a puff piece rather than neutral coverage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Townsend#Local/Community_Involvement Hence why I added the disputed template.

"Representative Townsend has been a champion for those in her district and around the State. She frequently comes to the defense of constituents who are being persecuted or have fallen on hard times. Some examples include the following:" Blatant promotion.

"Helped an Apache Junction family avoid eviction by starting a GoFundMe account and raising the money to help them get back on their feet. (No citation to protect the identity of the family)" I don't think allowing uncited claims to protect people's identity is a Wikipedia policy.

"Took great interest in preventing the removal of the Salt River Wild Horse herd by the Federal government. Felt horses were a State resource and treasure not to be disposed of by an uncaring bureaucracy.[19]" Partisan tone against the federal government.

"Working to help the Hitiching Post Pizza restaurant in Apache Junction survive undue and oppressive regulations, as well as blatant discrimination." Partisan tone against the federal government.

"Fervently challenged the #RedForEd movement after quickly realizing the leadership had ulterior motives, including pushing critical pedagogy when their leader, Noah Karvelis stated that "teaching is political."[20]" This reads like she's a fighter against some evil conspiracy.

Honestly, I think the entire section should be scrapped. 2600:8800:7882:7B00:45A7:4350:E3EE:A829 (talk) 22:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

This wikipedian agrees, and has scrapped it. 2600:8800:2F00:B29:C10B:7FFF:A2CC:C7D4 (talk) 02:16, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Concurrence: This article is a mess
This article has basically no neutral language and reads like a ballotpedia entry or a CV/Resumé. The citations largely do not support the statements presented. The summary and education sections are fine, but

1. The Phoenix Balanced Budget Amendment Planning Conference does not belong generally (it might well need its own page), and Townsend's contributions could be better worked in a single sentence in a more general paragraph (eg "Townsend was elected president of the Phoenix Balanced Budget Amendment Planning Conference...") rather than its own paragraph. Even still, I do not know that this is particularly significant information that merits inclusion anyhow. The event doesn't even have its own article. The event's website (bbaplanningconvention.org) is apparently defunct and other searches indicate spotty coverage and a promotion from the alec.org website.

2. Chairmanships and Leadership Positions - again, kinda seems like a CV. Again, we could probably incorporate this information better than bulleted list.

3. Bills passed into law - Yeah, we're not ballotpedia. This information is probably too specific for an encyclopedia article. Individual discussions of particular positions Townsend is known for might be a better plan.

4. Elections - I think this is the strongest section on the page.

5. Controversy - this is poorly written with non-neutral and unnecessary language. "In 2018, she stirred some controversy during a highly publicized teacher protest for more education funding by responding to a constituent that the money in the budget that was set for other items to include a suicide hotline, training for police officers, money for Alzheimer's research, etc. would no longer be available. "

That's a really unnecessarily long sentence.

" She also offered to help any teacher, parent, or student harmed by the illegal strike to find legal representation in a class action lawsuit and suggested that it was up to the lawyers to determine who the defendants would be. "

"Illegal strike," eh? That seems to be a view supported almost exclusively by Townsend. What the article actually means is Townsend got a law firm to threaten to sue teachers for striking. Townsend proposed an amendment to the state budget proposing this fine and it was voted down overwhelmingly by a voice vote. I conjecture this edit (and most of the page) was added by the candidate herself, or someone very close to her.

"Representative Townsend was an ardent opponent to the political and ideological nature of the movement, yet maintained that she did support the teachers throughout the movement, despite the heckling online and at the Capitol, where her car was allegedly keyed while the RedForEd group mingled among the Legislative parking lot en masse. "

This is an extremely awkward sentence. This is way too many words. It's also kind of weasley and misleading (how do you "support" teachers in your capacity as a legislator but oppose them politically and ideologically? ???)

So suggestions:

What about a personal life, biography, that kind of thing? Most of the other politician pages have this. For example, Ms. Townsend served in the Navy. Where's that? Where was she born?

I realize it doesn't sound serious, but where's the bit with her becoming a furry? She has a knowyourmeme page. I believe (by google search counts) her fursona is the height of her online exposure. We need to include that, I think.

Furthermore, there are other episodes of (newsworthy) controversy from Townsend. There was an incident where she (quoting headline) said "women acting in 'moral defiance' have 'no defense' if raped" There's a few other instances where she grabbed headlines. That's what we need and that's what relevant to her wikipedia page.

I'm going to work on rewriting the whole thing from scratch using a template of other legislators. If you guys aren't a fan I'm not offended if you revert.

2600:8800:2F00:B29:C10B:7FFF:A2CC:C7D4 (talk) 02:56, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

July 2022
Consolidated existing information into a readable and BLP-friendly format. Corkindale (talk) 20:03, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know you're blocked. Unfortunately, lots of your sources are unreliable, so we'll have to undo some of your work. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

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 * Kelly Townsend.jpg

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
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Article needs extensive clean-up
A large amount of content has been added recently. I've found non-reliable sources (a garage door company?!?), I've found content that misrepresents the cited sources, I've found unsourced claims, and there seems to be unnecessary repetition. Because it's so poorly organized with a gazillion subsections, it's hard to tell. Are there any experienced editors watching this article who want to clean it up? If not, I'll go through it and see what I can do. Schazjmd  (talk)  00:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I got through the article down to the first five paragraphs in the "Election activism" section. A lot of overstatements (both crediting and blaming Townsend beyond what sources support) and poor sourcing (refs that don't even mention Townsend). It really seems like people have edited in a lot of WP:OR while citing only vaguely related sources. Anyway, I'm stopping now, since I have no interest in Townsend or Arizona or politics, and reading all this stuff is just too depressing. I hope someone else picks it up later. (Really check each source!) Cheers. Schazjmd   (talk)  20:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hoo boy. I followed a line by line tromp through the statements, too, ending at "On November 4, 2020, after a video" (checked). I'll keep poking at it later, but it does make your head spin. After reading a pile of sources, it's tempting to round up a sample of them and replace the whole section with "Townsend was involved in a number of debunked conspiracy theories and failed lawsuits to overturn the election results." When I'm done vetting the content and sources, maybe a final pass could summarize the whole section. Cheers.  signed, Willondon (talk)  21:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I've been watching you via the watchlist. I can't say I'm "glad" you had a similar experience, but I do feel validated in my own frustration. Thanks for the improvements! Schazjmd   (talk)  21:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Up to "The day before the attack..." (not checked). I ran into the Pinal Central (newspaper?) source there, whose patience Wikipedia has apparently exhausted, and who now requires a subscription. I understand scholarly Wikipedians have special access to some journals and resources, but I've never looked into it. If there's a way a Wikipedian can check out "the library copy", instead of being shooed away from the newsstand, maybe it's time I learned. Any pointers welcome.  signed, Willondon (talk)  22:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I could open it (no idea why) and it supports the sentence. Looks like it works in wayback machine too. That's always my fallback when I run into a paywall. Schazjmd   (talk)  23:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)