This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Classicfilms (talk | contribs) at 20:41, 7 December 2008 (→External links). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
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External links
The[REDACTED] guideline on external links asks us to keep external links in articles to a minimum and only link pages that have information that isn't suitable for the article for some reason. User:Classicfilms added a fair number of external links which I don't think should be used as external links, so I've removed them from the article. I copied and pasted them here with my notes of how I think they may or may not be useful as references for this article.
BALLOT PROPOSITIONS June 1978-June 1998This is a listing of the names and numbers of ballot propositions. It certainly doesn't contain a large amount of information, but it could be useful if someone thinks we need a source to say which initiative this is. Personally, I think it makes more sense to use the California Voter Information Guide from 1978, which has much more information about the initiative, and, of course, all of the information available on this website.
Back to the Ramparts in California This is about the Milk film and similarities between 1978 and 2008: it doesn't contain any useful information about 1978.
Bush Miscalculates on Gay Republicans Because it's a 2000 editorial about George W. Bush. I actually don't think this would be useful even as a source. It includes a reference to Reagan and Brigg's, but I don't believe that editorials are reliable sources.
Taxes No, False Teeth Yes This is good in that it's a contemporary source, but it has only one paragraph about the Briggs Initiative. This may or may not be a useful source.
Also, for anyone interested in improving this article, the Save Our Children article is well referenced. In addition to the books cited there, "Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America" by Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney has some information on the topic. - Enuja (talk) 19:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
- You raise some valuable points. Right now, the article contains only one source which means that the article, as it stands, is in violation of Misplaced Pages:Verifiability. Here is my response to your suggestions:
- BALLOT PROPOSITIONS June 1978-June 1998 - contains the date of the election which is missing from the article. If you can provide another source which also contains the date, that's fine. Otherwise, I would like to add this to the body article in order to verify the date.
- Back to the Ramparts in California - this contained an archival photograph related to Prop. 6 and provided a source to verify the demonstrations against it, which is useful information. I am not attached to this article if you can provide another source for this information, that's fine. Otherwise, there really isn't a good reason to remove it from the article as it does provide direct information about the topic.
- Bush Miscalculates on Gay Republicans - We have exactly one reference for Reagan's involvement in this issue. I am not attached to this particular article but I do feel that as his influence was critical to this history, we need more sources on the topic. I won't insist on this reference (although it does reflect what historians write about the subject) but I would ask that more references are provided on the topic.
- Taxes No, False Teeth Yes - There is no reason to remove this article. It is archival documentation of the event, not an op-ed, and provides a source for Tom Bradley's involvement. It should be added to the body of the article.
- I would thus argue that three of the sources clearly satisfy Misplaced Pages:Verifiability - I feel that in this context the NYT article also does qualify but will not push it. Of course established scholarship is always valued in WP articles, but until a group of editors do the research, that won't happen at this moment. The Misplaced Pages contains numerous articles with sources such as these and as I said they all qualify as RS - they don't need to be EL's, but there really isn't a good reason not to include them or similar sources to an article which has virtually none. In other words, my goal is to wikify the article by making it verifiable. -Classicfilms (talk) 20:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
- On verifiability: I wrote Save Our Children and Harvey Milk. Both articles include an extended discussion on the Briggs Initiative. My primary sources for the 1978 campaign were indeed Clendinen's Out For Good and Fred Fejes' Gay Rights and Moral Panic. The Mayor of Castro Street also includes quite a bit of info about John Briggs and Randy Shilts as they enjoyed a unique politician-reporter relationship, even after Briggs learned Shilts was gay. I don't usually have much comment about external links, but this article certainly deserves a thorough treatment. --Moni3 (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
- This:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/Harvey_Milk#Briggs_Initiative
- is a fantastic section - well documented and well written. As with the current article, I think that the date of the election should be added since we don't have a WP article on this election, but otherwise, your section reflects what I had in mind when I wrote the comments above. And, as I wrote, I am not particularly attached to any of the articles above - I was aiming towards verifiability.
- Since the Briggs Initiative article is not WP compliant, I would recommend that we redirect to your section on the Harvey Milk page which is a better article or at least a sourced one. Perhaps some of the useful sections that lack sources can be moved to the Harvey Milk talk page. Subarticles should only be created when they have sources to back them up. -Classicfilms (talk) 20:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)