Talk:The Gardeners of America/Men's Garden Clubs of America

Multiple Issues
Wikipedia editors criticize this article for not providing sufficient references to secondary and tertiary sources. It seems kind of ridiculous to insist on such references for articles about noncontroversial nonprofit organizations. (Just how controversial is gardening?) I was asked by a local garden club member to create the Wikipedia entry for the national organization. He wrote a draft of the article, and I worked with the current TGOA/MGCA webmaster to make sure the posted information was accurate. It was my job to “code” the Wikipedia page. I provided links to pages on their website that document organization details. Every year the webmaster apprises me of organization changes, and I revise the Wikipedia page accordingly.

I conducted an Internet search to locate secondary and tertiary sources about TGOA/MGCA, and I was consequently able to cite three newspaper articles that mention the organization, one book that mentions the organization, and links to individual websites of garden clubs that are affiliated with TGOA/MGCA and mention it on their web pages. These citations prove that TGOA/MGCA actually exists!

This is all rather silly since, in this case, secondary and tertiary sources always use primary sources for their information about nonprofit organizations. How else would those sources learn about it? I located another book that catalogs national organizations that lists TGOA/MGCA, but its description of TGOA/MGCA is simply copied directly from the TGOA/MGCA website! So what would be accomplished by citing such a source?

It seems to me that Wikipedia should back off on the “too many primary sources” issue for organizations where the only meaningful source of accurate information is the organization itself.

Lou (talk) 21:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)