Talk:Young Americans for Freedom

message: Jbamb removed the "npov" tag, but added a "must improve quality" tag.
Why?  This page isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but surely it already exceeds in quality nearly any article on a comparable organization.  But I'm probably biased since I spent a lot of time on this article, so I might be missing something that's totally obvious.
Did you have something specific in mind?
Lawrence King 00:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with the article: Quality

message: What is the objection to using the image from MSU YAF?  It shows several YAF activities and is relevent for this article.  Jcmiller 19:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: I added an extra division to the "History" section, so that the subsections now read:
* 2.1 National conservative activism, 1960–1965
* 2.2 Reaction to radical activism, 1965–1971
* 2.3 Advocacy politics, 1971–1985
* 2.4 Campus activism, 1985–1990
* 2.5 Advocacy politics, 1991–present
* 2.6 YAF in the present day
But I'm wondering if perhaps the fifth and sixth sections can be separated chronologically.  In other words, can we divide the 1990's YAF from the YAF of today in any logical manner?  If so, what would be the year dividing these two periods?
This is always a tricky question, because YAF is fairly decentralized, and it's possible for YAF to entirely collapse in one region while it's going strong somewhere else, or for YAF to be completely rebooted in one state while it is continuous in another state.  If the national organization and aim of YAF has been pretty consistent from 1992 to 2006, then we certainly shouldn't divide these sections as I suggest.  But if there has been a "reboot" of some nature that is more extensive than just one or two states, I think the division would work.
Do any of you think that this division makes sense?  If so, what would be the best year to use as symbolizing the division? - Lawrence King 00:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good division point in last few years? 

message: : And one more clarification:  you wrote that "the head of YAF has resigned and issued an apology", but the news article mentions only the spokesperson for MSU YAF, Joanna Varnavas, resigned.  The chairman of MSU YAF is not stated to have resigned, and there is no suggestion that YAF's national office is at all affected (or even aware of the controversy). — Lawrence King (talk) 06:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have any documentation for that?  I searched for her name on the internet and found the following articles:      All of them associate her with MSU YAF, not national YAF.  The first of the three articles, about her resignation, is especially clear.  On the other hand, this profile is less clear:   — Lawrence King (talk) 22:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

text: This article calls her the spokeswoman for YAF, but then goes on to say that it is unclear whether or not MSU YAF is affiliated with the national organization  Jlippi 15:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joanna Varnavas' status 

message: The Wikipedia article says that MOrgan Brooke Wilkins is part of Kentucky YAF.  It then says Wilkins made international headlines after organizing an event marketed as "catching an illegal immigrant."
The two sources cited are these:   
But these articles refer to an event at Michigan State, not in Kentucky.
Moreover, this news article, not cited on the Wikipedia page, says the event was cancelled: 
Can anyone clarify? — Lawrence King (talk) 00:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The event was indeed cancelled at MSU after the president of MSU officially condemned it. It did occur at University of Michigan  Jlippi 15:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day":  bad information? 

message: I edited some info out that is in error of YAF. But I left in the following:
"So when the anti-war protests in major American cities were confronted with even larger pro-war demonstrations, many YAF members were on the anti-war side -- albeit for very different reasons than the left. This cut YAF off from the young demonstrators supporting the war, even though these people would normally have been a source of recruits for YAF's next generation of activism."
I would like a source for this otherwise it should also be cut.
Considering that I was one of the founding members of YAF on my campus back in the 1980's and I personally wrote the YAF national platform during that period of time, I do know a little something about this organization. Some of the info in this article is simply wrong. My YAF group supported the first Gulf War and we supported the troops by holding signs outside of the local naval base, along with many other people. So, I don't know of any YAF groups that were anti-war. But, if there were, they need to be mentioned and the source cited. Otherwise I will return with a knife and edit that statement out.
Also, here's this:
"This event led the Southern Poverty Law Center to consider whether to classify the MSU chapter a hate group."
Who cares what a left-wing group thinks of YAF? It's utterly ridiculous to include that info. It needs to go bye-bye because it is a POV comment by a group that is naturally opposed to the conservative politics of YAF. Let's also include comments from the communist party about YAF. Right?
There's more but let's start with these issues. Jtpaladin 22:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors & non-cited info 

message: We are going to add information to this article describing the group's activities at Central Michigan University. If YAF members wish to provide their input into how this information should be presented in a neutral POV, that's welcome. What you cannot do is simply delete factual information because it makes you unhappy or uncomfortable.  Ankles 20:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're wrong. Look at the sources I cited. The member in question is Jason Gillman Jr., the 2nd VP of the CMU chapter of YAF. The information is valid, and factual. Ankles 21:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added another source showing that YAF attempted to frame members of the Gay Straight Alliance for the chalkings. Ankles 22:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree after looking at a couple of the articles posted above that these hate group charges against the CMU chapter should be kept out for now.  They seem to be completely unsubstantiated, and only a small number (8 or 9 I think) of members of the student senate actually voted for the hate group charge.  The other information put in by user Ankles about charges and counter charges between the YAF chapter and the campus Gay/Straight Alliance group do not seem nearly notable enough for this article.--Bigtimepeace | talk |  contribs 20:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Central Michigan University

message: I don't understand how this is revalant to Young Americans for Freedom. This was one person, his own personal beliefs and not the actual organization. 64.7.188.177 16:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Kyle Bristow/MSU

message: [August 2009] The national YAF web site seems to have no news after 2008. For a comparison, see Talk:Social Democrats USA, where the web site stopped changing several years ago, allegedly after the site owner's death. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: national YAF still active?

message: A small point, but I don't think Nixon took the US off the gold standard;  I think this happened in 1933.  Quaesivit 01:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Gold standard"

message: Cgingold (talk) 21:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: sub-categorization completed.  SkierRMH (talk) 06:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category adjustment request 

message: :Image:Yaf logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 03:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Yaf logo.jpg

message: Updates to YAF Chapters
Today Updated the section of this wikipedia page by entering 2 new chapters; American University and Liberty University. My goal is to acquire the names of all of the universities in Virginia and the District of Columbia that have functioning YAF chapters.
My source for these Chapter additions, and most likely, future chapter updates comes directly from the Leadership Institute, not a web service or any other type of print media.
--William Zimmerman (talk) 16:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  YAF Chapters Updates 

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests July 2011 
;What should I do?
	A discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs.
This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: File:Goldwater Rally in Madison Square Garden.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: Parts of the 'history' section of this article are still not in line with WP:NPOV, and are biased towards YAF's point of view. In particular, the 'Campus activism, 1985–1990' subsection could do with a rewrite. It includes lines like The conservative decade also brings a new resurgence of left-wing intolerance on college campuses. Radical left-wing administrators, faculty, and students go on the rampage in their attempts to silence conservative student organizations and publications. - hardly a neutral assessment. It also rather subjectively refers to the United States as 'our nation' and to anti-communist militia movements as 'Freedom Fighters'. Is anyone willing to take a try at fixing these issues? Robofish (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV in history section 

message: this entry is little more than a puff-propaganda piece for YAF -- all of the comments and citations on the group's influence and activities come directly from the group itself or its supporters and/or alumni -- i am adding this comment to the TALK page because there is not a "Did you find what you were looking for?" section/feedback-loop included with this article...  here is the problem: if one wants to read YAF's version of its history and influence, one should go to the YAF site itself, not wikipedia -- wikipedia has an obligation to ensure that NPOV information is incuded in its articles, and all such information -- much of it well sourced -- has been repeatedly excised from this article, leaving a the type of useless propaganda piece i'd expect to find on oonservapedia, not on wikipedia...  until someone can tell me why such information has been routinely excised from this article, i am loathe to make corrections/additions, as all such attepts at providing balance and an actual NPOV to this article have been mercilessly reverted in the past...  this is a noticable trend when it comes to articles dealing with "conservative" and "right-wing" topics on wikipedia -- trolls posing as NPOV fetishists are seriously undermining the quality and reputation of wikipedia by stripping out legitimate information from articles pertaining to politics, culture, and -- increasingly -- history...  "i only use wikipedia for science and technology articles" is an increasingly heard refrain these days by persons of all philosophical stripes...  either wikipedia should strengthen its commitment to NPOV or it will suffer the defection of those who have labored in its vineyards only to have their grapes malliciously trampled upon by culture-warriors with a definite POV... all i want is balance and neutrality -- this article is a stark example of editor-condoned one-sided censorship in the guise of preserving NPOV...  oedipus (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me let you in on a little secret one only grasps after a few months on Wikipedia: the only editors "condoning" such censorship (or charged with enforcing NPOV rules) are you, me and anyone else who can edit (if this is semi-protected, that means any registered editor after five days). If you disagree with the current style and content of the YAF article (as I tend to do myself), you have to undertake at least some of the grunt work of reverting bad deletions and deleting bad insertions or rewording text back to Neutral POV. There will be nasty edit wars and Talk Page debates going on angrily for what seems like forever; if it gets really crazy, you may have to appeal to the NPOV noticeboard (hopefully never to Wikipedia:Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents). It depends how much effort you want to put into the effort. ¶ But let me offer two points of consolation: (1) similar things happen at the other end of the spectrum, between leftist groups and their left-wing or right-wing critics, and (2) sometimes this kind of problem can end up getting resolved quite amicably and professionally (by amateurs) when a small group of NPOV-believing editors with opposing personal political beliefs gets together to pull good, sound sources for every assertion or quotation, balance the commentary in a mutually-satisfactory form, and suppress the chaff. Examples I've worked on are Fairness Doctrine and Glass–Steagall Act. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: @Shakescene: thanks for the words of encouragement; i strongly believe in NPOV, and have been through both edit wars and harmonious collaborations, and will be back to try and add some balance (which is all i want) -- speaking of balance, i wonder if you have any comments on an RfC i proposed on the Talk:Traditional_marriage page, especially explanation of oedipus' RfC and traditional marriage RfC. oedipus (talk) 08:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Off-topic response: All that over a redirect ???? Looks to me like a prime candidate, even before it's fully-ripened, for WP:Lamest edit wars. Going over the talk and edit history of YAF looks as if it'd strain my patience and capacities to the limit by itself. Cf: Talk:The Bronx/Name and Talk:Social Democrats, USA. Good luck. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: yeah -- didn't think my request was so controversial...  by the way, the heat of my comment on the article was mostly fueled by the time it took to listen (with a Screen_reader, which means no skipping or skim reading) to most of the talk history pages, not to mention the history pages for the article itself, and by what i found there... oh, and thanks for the pointers -- as f. scott wrote in The Crack-Up: "One should be able to see that things are hopeless, and yet be determined to make them otherwise." oedipus (talk) 09:09, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  this is one of the worst, most biased entries in wikipedia 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Young Americans for Freedom. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070928002428/http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061121/NEWS01/611210331/1382 to http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061121/NEWS01/611210331/1382
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:37, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In the sixties, some of them burned draft cards in the middle of a YAL conference and staged a walkout.
There was a radical caucus that broke away after the walkout. Then there was a lot of cross pollination between those people and anarchist outcasts from SDS.
Benjamin (talk) 03:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Walkout  

message: An IP editor keeps adding content about the Society for Individual Liberty, the California Libertarian Alliance , the New Jersey Libertarian Alliance, and the Libertarian Republican Alliance and various YAFers who founded them, without sources. All content must be verifiable, meaning it must be supportable with reliable sources. This is especially true of information about living people. Please provide sources for this content. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources required 

message: see  Doug Weller talk 19:48, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Source 

message: Per WP:PAGEDECIDE and the closer's comment at WP:Articles for deletion/Sharon Statement, I'm proposing that Sharon Statement be merged into this article. The Sharon Statement is YAF's mission statement, and it's both irregular and impractical for for a political advocacy group to have an article devoted solely to its mission statement, especially when neither article is particularly large. Granted the Sharon Statement is notable, but it would be more beneficial to readers for it to be explained within the context of the YAF. Pinging AFD participants:        --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:04, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Rjensen (talk) 05:35, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: – Lionel(talk) 10:20, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the accusation of forum shopping, the closer of the AFD specifically stated that this discussion could continue here, so... --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:10, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

text: Would you mind reading WP:PAGEDECIDE and WP:AGF? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:58, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggesting that editors who disagree with you should read WP:AGF is itself a violation of WP:AGF, which you ought to consider reading. 192.160.216.52 (talk) 19:48, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

text: I could go on, but what's the point?  The subject is more than notable, and PAGEDECIDE is not really relevant here. 192.160.216.52 (talk) 20:04, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:   This demonstrates my point. The source discusses the Sharon Statement as part of YAF's struggles and efforts, which is why we should cover it in the context of YAF as well. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:19, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Indeed, the Sharon Statement should be covered "in the context of YAF as well" -- that is, it should be mentioned in the YAF article as well as its own article.  The YAF article should mention the role of the Sharon Statement in the founding of YAF, and the fact that since 1960 YAF membership has always been contingent on agreeing with the Sharon Statement.  But the material in the Legacy section of the Sharon Statement article belongs where it is -- it doesn't belong in the YAF article. — Lawrence King (talk) 23:18, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that that section cites only two sources, and both sources discuss the Sharon Statement in the context of the YAF... --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:28, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal: [[Sharon Statement]] 

message: * . review by Human Events Covers the history of YAF and Conservative movement in mid 70s.
 
	
* . online review by Lou Cannon Covers the history of YAF and Conservative movement 1976–1980.
Benjamin (talk) 09:49, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed content