Talk:Ballotpedia

Nonpartisan?

Don't you just love that the only sources describing this website as non-partisan are far-right organs like the Murdoch owned WSJ, who have an obvious interest in lying about the true lack of impartiality of their fellow travellers over at Ballotpedia. Fact is the site is funded by the Koch brothers notorious funders of right wing parties throughout the world and creators of many astroturfing and propoganda organisations in order to spread vicious lies to fund their extremist political ideology. I would suggest a complete rewrite (or deletion) of this obviously biased and partisan article More information is available here178.167.254.76 (talk) 00:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Funny, the Sourcewatch article you link to is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive advocacy outlet funded by the Democracy Alliance and billionaire George Soros. [1] I can find no evidence that Ballotpedia is or has ever been funded by "the Koch Brothers." Based on a quick search, I found the site described as "nonpartisan" and/or "objective" by a wide variety of sources that can hardly be described as "right-wing." E.g. the Washington Post [2], the National Education Association [3], and the Daily Kos [4]. Oh, and this is funny: I did find evidence this website's sponsor has received funding from a billionaire--John Arnold, a....wait for it....Democrat and Obama bundler. [5], [6]. May be time to update your narrative. Champaign Supernova (talk) 01:21, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

What a snarky response! I strongly suggest you retract and apologize to that IP. 71.23.178.214 (talk) 13:34, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Champaign Supernova

I deleted "In the News" as that is NOT a recognized Wikipedia section, and will now delete it again. Those sections were copied from another website, and I thought all were deleted years ago. Wikipedia is NOT a linkfarm, listing all the places some group has been mentioned in passing. See Guidelines for further explanation of what Wikipedia is and isn't. 71.23.178.214 (talk) 13:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

"Non-partisan"

Ballotpedia is non-partisan only in the sense of the FEC definition, which is to not mention a candidate or political party by name. It certainly has an ideology, as one can see by the backgrounds of its staff (Koch, FreedomWorks, etc.) Nothing wrong with that, but why the determination to hide it? Organizations such as the Cato Institute is up-front about its views and ties, and obscuring them raises questions.

Note: Information redacted based on privacy concerns, see WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE

As for the rest of my deletions which were reverted, InfoWorld is not some definitive ranking source for political websites. Neither are the other sources cited for Ballotpedia being non-partisan. Reliable sources aren't necessarily reliable for all areas of all topics.

However, the best compromise might be to have a section for Staff, in which the backgrounds of each person, including family connections, are described. In addition, the sources claiming Ballotpedia to be non-partisan should be included: it's hardly a surprise that Fox and the WSJ, both Murdoch-owned, would describe them as such. Would that be acceptable? 71.23.178.214 (talk) 14:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

If you find some WP:RS discussing your concerns, great. Right now this looks like WP:OR, and I don't think someone's LinkedIn profile is an appropriate source. You've also picked two seemingly random staff (are they particularly notable? Ever mentioned in the media?) According to the sources in this article, there are 34 staff. So I'm just not sure how the LinkedIn and organizational/past employer biographies of 2 staff is going to help us here. Champaign Supernova (talk) 16:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Re. inclusion of "Policypedia": I can find no WP:RS's discussing Policypedia. If you want to add it to the article, please do so by adding a reliable citation. Champaign Supernova (talk) 16:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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