Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Take Pride in America


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  15:36, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Take Pride in America

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Could not find any reliable independent secondary sources describing this project, see WP:GNG. Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Google news? ABC -- Aronzak (talk) 04:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Also this. Does look like kind of a bullshit program they don't actually want to fund.-- Aronzak (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Neither of these sources are independent or contain significant coverage of Take Pride in America. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:29, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * delete defunct government program. created by sock of user:matisse and heavily edited by COI account ["TakePride" but there is still almost no sourcing. Not NOTABLE. [[User:Jytdog|Jytdog]] (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:34, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:35, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. The program seems to have stopped funding after Fiscal 2011 but there's lots of secondary sources of notability varying from high to not-so-high:         . Whether the program is defunct or not is irrelevant to WP:GNG Fiachra10003 (talk) 14:09, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Please remember that, for notability purposes, sources must be independent. Announcements by the federal agency that ran Take Pride in America and the like are not independent and have no bearing on notability. The only independent source of the lot you cite is the last link, a short article published in 1969. This can't be the same thing because the subject of our article was launched in 2003. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:17, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 00:13, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I take your point, Dr. Fleischman and I considered that but I don't think that WP:IS necessarily was thinking of the Federal Interagency Team on Volunteerism's legal relationship, if any, to the Department of the Interior. In any case, my WP:GOOGLETESTing made it clear that the program didn't start in 2003 but had been around a lot longer, at least to the Clinton Administration, and was effectively reauthorized in 2002.  Let me dig some more.  Fiachra10003 (talk) 00:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 03:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've added a significant number of sources to the article (it only had one citation when it was nominated for AfD).  Please take a look again.  Fiachra10003 (talk) 22:24, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * thanks for working on this.  but as far as I can tell the program is dead.... last thing i found was something in 2012, i think.  how notable can a program be, when its demise isn't even recorded anywhere?  and the whole article appears to be inaccurate, in using the present tense, as though it were still active. Jytdog (talk) 00:08, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Fiachra10003, I appreciate your research, but it may all be for naught. None of the sources you found are reliable independent secondary sources significantly covering this project. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Dr Fleischmann, I think you're taking too narrow a view of the term "independent secondary sources" and "significantly covering". By necessity, government programs are often going to have their most significant coverage in governmental sources; you can see the links to the legislation cited. Also, while I know that an AfD isn't really the place for editorial discussions, I think you've incorrectly added dead link tags here:
 * and here:
 * These links aren't dead at all. Fiachra10003 (talk) 13:21, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Those links were dead last night, but I agree they're alive and well now. Anyway, sources written by federal agencies such as the Department of the Interior and volunteer.gov about a DOI volunteer program are... pretty obviously non-independent, sorry. The federal government has an interest in promoting its own programs; the fact that they did so has little or no bearing on whether the programs are of interest to the public (our readership). That's how WP:N works, and governments don't get a free pass. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * These links aren't dead at all. Fiachra10003 (talk) 13:21, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Those links were dead last night, but I agree they're alive and well now. Anyway, sources written by federal agencies such as the Department of the Interior and volunteer.gov about a DOI volunteer program are... pretty obviously non-independent, sorry. The federal government has an interest in promoting its own programs; the fact that they did so has little or no bearing on whether the programs are of interest to the public (our readership). That's how WP:N works, and governments don't get a free pass. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

ARC and 1980s sources
This is getting a bit complex. Thanks to Fiachra10003's research we have sources from the American Recreation Coalition, including the ones cited as well as three NY Times sources from the 1980s. Browsing through ARC's coverage of TPIA it appears ARC wasn't independent of TPIA. They actively promoted the program and may have helped to set it up. There's also a question of the reliability of their content. Then, they have an FAQ in which they say there was a separate program that ran from 1986 to 1992. All in all I still don't think we meet the GNG bar, as we have no independent, reliable secondary sources significantly covering the subject. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Very strange re. the dead links... their server may have been down. I agree with you, on reflection that the News-Herald article probably is unrelated and should be removed as a source.  I can't find anything that documents a connection to the Interior program. Fiachra10003 (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ARC from my researches is the DC lobbyist for the Recreational Vehicle industry (Winnebago, Monaco etc). See this less-than-flattering review: . It clearly has a vested interest in promoting RV-friendly destinations like the national parks. Fiachra10003 (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * On your core point - there are quite a number of less-than-formally independent sources significantly covering the subject and quite a number of secondary sources that cover aspects of the subject. The Times articles, on their own, meet the coverage test of WP:GNG: an independent "...significant coverage is more than a trivial mention ...". While "...multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source", you can see that the Times' citations are articles written by different reporters over the course of several years.  The New Jersey Clean Communities is sponsored by the State of New Jersey, independent of the Federal government.  Fiachra10003 (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The NYT sources are about the 1985-1992 program, not the 2002-2013(?) program. What you're calling the New Jersey Clean Communities source is as well; in addition, that source is clearly a press release written by TPIA itself. The fact that it's posted on NJCC's website is immaterial. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair point re. the NJ source - on closer review it comes straight from TPIA. But it's about the relaunched program, not the earlier incarnation, for the avoidance of doubt. Fiachra10003 (talk) 21:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * There weren't two separate programs. It's always been done under the same legislation and the same budget line-item, which is the "Office of the Secretary" [of the DoI]. My best understanding right now is that Hodel created TPIA because it was something "user-friendly" to do while he spent the rest of his time handing out mineral leases. The Gingrich House then defunded the program as part of a general effort to stop the Clinton Dept of the Interior spending money.  The Bush White House relaunched the program so nobody would notice that they were handing out oil and gas leases.  Now Obama's in, the sequestration cuts have squeezed the money out of the DoI budget. Crazy. Fiachra10003 (talk) 21:11, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Fiachra, do you have any sources saying that sequestration squeezed money out of this program in particular? thx Jytdog (talk) 13:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Everything I've seen that mentions this is not formally reliable (which is why I don't think it can go in the article) but after Federal FY2012 the awards seem to have stopped. Therefore the informal bits and pieces seem consistent with the timing of the Budget Control Act of 2011. That said, the one "reliable" source, the Dept of the Interior budget (, page 676) shows that the TPIA program is still being funded! Taxpayers: where are your tax dollars going! Fiachra10003 (talk) 14:28, 24 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Dr. Fleischman, please take a look at the Scouting (magazine) article now cited. It certainly meets the requirement of substantial coverage even if the article itself is poorly written and rather vapid. Fiachra10003 (talk) 13:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Good find. There are two problems with this source though, both possibly surmountable. First, what's available for viewing doesn't have any substantial coverage of TPIA. I suspect the rest of the article does just because of the title, but I can't verify this. It's possible the article is about a broader volunteer movement. Second and more importantly, we need reliable sourcing connecting showing that the 1980s program and the 2000s program were part of the same (single) program. Perhaps you can lay that sourcing out here. If such sourcing exists then I'll !vote to keep. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You need to look at page 59, the continuation page. (It's shown in the corner of page 14 but is hard to read). Fiachra10003 (talk) 18:36, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * This is worth looking at: This is from the first archived 2003 version of takepride.org and among other things it provides the Bush Administration's 2003 explanation of the relationship between the 1980s-1990s and the 2003+ versions of the program: 'Although the Federal Take Pride in America infrastructure was deactivated in the early 1990’s, the program remains on the books, under the Take Pride in America Act [Title XI of PL 101-628, November 28, 1990], with its purposes codified “... to establish and maintain a public awareness campaign to instill in the public an appreciation for Federal, state and local lands, facilities and cultural and natural resources...” and to conduct a national awards program to honor groups and individuals that distinguish themselves in their community efforts. .... The renewed Take Pride In America program will recognize and further volunteer opportunities for Americans to fulfill their commitment to serve others, assist us in achieving our stewardship mission for public lands and public places and engage people—including America’s youth—in outdoor experiences.' Fiachra10003 (talk) 18:52, 23 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. The New York Times sources from the 1980s provide just enough coverage for me to be satisfied TPIA meets the GNG standard. This TPIA source reliably demonstrates enough of a link between the 1980s-90s program and the 2000s-2010s program to show that the 1908s sources are talking about the same thing (albeit in a different incarnation). As an aside, the Scouting source is useful, but it's not independent as it says the Boy Scouts were closely involved in the launch of the program. Thanks to Fiachra10003 for the extensive research. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * fwiw, i still struggle with idea that this program can be notable, if nobody - not a single source - noted when it died. Jytdog (talk) 17:19, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you saw my response of this morning which was buried above: "Everything I've seen that mentions this is not formally reliable (which is why I don't think it can go in the article) but after Federal FY2012 the awards seem to have stopped. Therefore the informal bits and pieces seem consistent with the timing of the Budget Control Act of 2011. That said, the one "reliable" source, the Dept of the Interior budget (, page 676) shows that the TPIA program is still being funded!"  The conclusion I'm coming to is that TPIA is still alive from a legal and budgetary perspective but that (a) the democrats generally perceive it as a Republican program and pursue it only fitfully and (b) Sally Jewell, since she took office in April 2013, thinks it's a waste of time when her discretionary budget is being squeezed.  Her outdoors credentials are unparalleled (at least since Teddy Roosevelt).  Look at this:   and this: .  Secretary Jewell is pushing other approaches: "engage one million volunteers in support of public lands, effectively tripling the numbers we have now" ... no mention of TPIA.  Fiachra10003 (talk) 20:17, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * right, that is a bunch of guessing. the facts are that the website is dead and there has been no news of this program for about 3 years now. again - i struggle to understand how something notable is not even worth mentioning, when it dies.  we don't even have a source to authorize us changing all the verbs to past tense (although i guess we could rely on good old common sense for that) 20:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's a bunch of guessing which is why none of it goes in the article. I've tweaked the article a bit to introduce past tenses - feel free to tweak the article too.

Fiachra10003 (talk) 21:32, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Dr. Fleischman for your kind note above. I still don't think we've gotten to the bottom of what TPIA's history (and future, if any) is here but one of the good things that can come out of AfD is improved articles (not that this one is a good article yet).  Fiachra10003 (talk) 20:17, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.