Talk:List of Ku Klux Klan organizations

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I approach this list with a little bit of hesitancy over what to include. Any organization with "Ku Klux Klan" in the title is obviously eligible, but what about groups that don't such as the Knights of the White Camilia, Black Legion etc.? I don't think it would be useful to have this page turn into a blanket list of white supremacist/nationalist groups or "hate groups", as those already exist, and I feel it is best to have a page where readers can find groups specifically from the KKK tradition. Here is the solution I propose for the post reconstruction groups: if the organization either split off from a KKK, or merged into one, then it could be considered a KKK group. If it merely had overlapping membership, or cooperated with KKK - like the Citizens Councils , National States' Rights Party, American Nazi Party - that should be excluded because those groups were never organically part of a group using the KKK title, nor using the Klan regalia, nomenclature, secret pass words etc. I also think its unnecessary to add front groups or action squads to the list, as these were merely segments of parent KKK groups. I'm of two minds about auxiliaries such as women's and youth groups -- perhaps they should be listed with notice of their link to the parent Klan. That problem really only comes up with the larger groups such as the Twenties Klan and the UKA. Finally, I plan on making pages for generic names that have been used by a number of Klan groups ie, Original Knights, Invisible Empire, Confederate Knights etc. These groups often have historical links with one another, and they may not be notable enough on their own to warrant wiki pages, but could be if put into the large context of the genealogy of the Klan movement. I welcome any input that you would like to give me.--Dudeman5685 (talk) 19:16, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• The majority of groups listed on here appear to be non-notable, so I have to question the need for a list. Also, the prose looks like it has a generous helping of WP:OR. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:25, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I forgot to add that I feel that the issues related to the reconstruction paramilitaries are qualitatively different, for a number of reasons: the sources are not always clear about the identity of night riders and guerrillas; there was far less central organization than later groups; its difficult to tell who was a front group or simply another name for whom, or if two organizations were connected with each other in any meaningful way; some used elements from other groups, ergo, the Constitutional union guard called its local camps "klans" and the Knights of the Rising Sun wore sheets and hoods. For these reasons, I feel that in the case of the reconstruction Klans, an overall list is more appropriate listing all of the guerrilla groups that fought reconstruction during that era as they all had essentially the same goals and pursued them with the same methods, and the differences between them are somewhat semantic. It was the romanticized pastiche of these groups in Dixons novels and Birth of a Nation that the 1915 Klan drew inspiration from. --Dudeman5685 (talk) 19:44, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• And that response indicates more OR......Remember, it's not about what we know or can infeer, it's about what reliable sources have said. You make many statements in the list and there isn't a single source. You make conclusions and do it without sources. Before you start making "generic pages", you need to ask if that name actually has sufficient coverage by reliable third party sources to warrant an article. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)