Talk:Alan Sears

message: Out of about 11,800 words not counting the lead, about 5,767, more than half, of the article is made up of quotes from the subject. Some of these are so long they are probably copyright violations, but in any case there are simply too many quotations. See WP:Quotations#Overusing quotations. Doug Weller (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I am actively working on the article and that proportion will decrease dramtically. As for copyright violations, all of these quotes clearly fall under fair use. Intermittentgardener (talk) 16:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Except we have our own copyright policy that we all must follow. We allow brief use of quotations - a rule of thumb being about 220 words. Doug Weller (talk) 17:18, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Far too many quotes 

message: I'd think his desire to see Row vs Wade overturned warrants a mention. Doug Weller (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too. 203.218.214.60 (talk) 17:14, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abortion 

message: I added a primary sources tag because of the use of interviews, which we consider primary sources. It was removed without any discussion. Doug Weller (talk) 17:20, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary sources 

message: Sears was a federal prosecutor in Ed Meese's Justice Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. While employed by the Justice Department he was the Staff Executive Director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. In the Spring of 1986 Sears became notorious for sending a letter from the Commission over his own signature to thousands of retailers warning them, in an attempt to intimidate them into not selling Playboy and Penthouse,  that they might be publicly identified as pornography dealers.  As a result of this letter more than 17,000 retailers stopped carrying the magazine.  Christie Hefner, daughter of Hugh Hefner and president of Playboy Magazine, joined Penthouse International in suing the Meese Commission over Sears's letter.  Judge John Garrett Penn ordered the Meese Commission to retract the letter, and Sears quit the Department of Justice in disgust, moving to the Department of the Interior.  
 
This should be restored. Doug Weller (talk) 17:25, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You should have said so in your edit summary. This is pretty funny. The Commission had problems publishing it, and "Meese Commission eventually turned to Rutledge Hill, a small concern in Nashville, which published about forty thousand copies of the Final Report in an abridged version. Some Christian bookstores would not stock the work because of its graphic descriptions of movies and lengthy quotations from pornographic literature. Rutledge Hill distributed the work in a wrapper with a warning label stating it contained “extremely explicit content” that most people would find “offensive.” Not relevant to Sears but it's odd that Meese's own article barely mentions the report, and Meese report doesn't mention the publishing problem. 05:35, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, here's an academic source that says "Shortly before the Meese Commission published its findings, executive director Alan Sears issued a letter to several companies explaining that they were among the distributors of pornography about to be listed in the final report. In response, Southland Corporation, parent company of 7-Eleven, along with Rite-Aid and other retailers, announced that they would no longer sell Playboy, Penthouse, and Forum. Ten thousand stores removed the magazines from their shelves. Hefner saw it as a shake-down—“the first successful use of a national blacklist since the McCarthy era.” Playboy Enterprises, Inc., filed a lawsuit asking the court to enjoin the attorney general’s office to withdraw its threat. With the court ruling in Playboys favor, ... This doesn't suggest that any court said it was ok to name distributors, quite the opposite. I can find no suggestion that any court supported Sears. I see that he wrote to 26 companies:"The Reagan administration’s strategy involved both intimidation and legal initiatives. In February 1986, well before the Mccse Commission released its findings, Executive Director Sears wrote a letter - without informing commission members - to twenty-six companies that sold such magazines as Playboy and Penthouse stating that the commission had heard testimony that their enterprise was “involved in the sale or distribution of pornography.” The twenty-six firms included 7-Eleven, Rite-Aid, Thrifty, and Dart.*"  (talk) 05:52, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was his action while a Federal prosecutor warning thousands of retailers not to sell Penhouse and Playboy deleted? 

message: A sentence in the article cites to the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group whose ideology is diametrically opposed to that of ADF (the organization Sears founded). I removed the material sourced to that website, but Doug Weller reinstated the material. I don't see this as a close call. The SPLC website isn't a reliable source for this page. SunCrow (talk) 16:23, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: then take it to WP:RSN. The idea that we can't use sources that disagree with a stance taken by a person or organisation is weird. We use the SPLC regularly - but it must be attributed. Doug Weller talk 17:07, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation to SPLC Website

message: Here is the diff page: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alan_Sears&diff=prev&oldid=933843714
The information added seems contentious regarding the author of the book, especially when the quotation is merely an opinion. I am not representing the author nor do I have contact with him, but it seems that having only one negative quote that smears the author could be libelous.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ihaveadreamagain (talk • contribs) 17:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no problem with that, it's attributed to the SPLC which is the key thing, we allow criticism from reliable sources and the SPLC is considered a reliable source here. It's not libelous and do you really mean that one isn't enough? Doug Weller talk 17:39, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, saved too soon. Why didn't you read my reply above this one where I replied to another editor (now blocked for disruptive editing). Doug Weller talk 17:40, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

text: The SPLC is a respected source for subjects related to hate speech. It certainly isn't libelous for us to include this. O3000 (talk) 17:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

text: the latest discussion was last year, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. You'll have to get that changed if you are going to treat it as an unreliable source. Doug Weller talk 17:58, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

text: Then go to WP:NPOVN.  Doug Weller talk  —Preceding undated comment added 19:19, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

text: Just copy and paste it.Slatersteven (talk) 09:28, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

text: And so far all my efforts have turned up negative stuff.Slatersteven (talk) 11:45, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Neutrality Alert regarding live person  

message: The founders of ADF include Alan Sears, who acted as its first president and CEO. The bottom portion of the article in a boxed section does not show Alan Sears as a founder. 216.165.249.154 (talk) 00:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Which ADF? Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Founders of ADF