Talk:Washington State Three Percenters

Undue/unreliable tags

Also stating they put on "March for your rights" rally is also not a fact. I know the people involved, and non of them are members of 3% washingotn. Alan Acosta is in fact the person that put it on, and he is not right wing by any stretch of the imagination. _signed, TheRogueLibertarian ^talk —Preceding undated comment added 19:14, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Stating that 3% WA is a right wing militia is not based in any non-biased reality. Militias are illegal in Washington State, and they primarily focus on doing charity work, including cleaning up highways. Nothing referenced here is based in actual facts. There are many different political/religious leanings in the group. _signed, TheRogueLibertarian ^talk —Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

While the subject of this article does appear to meet notability criteria, as written the article gives undue weight to the opinions of the subject itself. It also currently cites The Daily Wire, which has been deemed an unreliable source on Wikipedia (RSP entry). Other sources cited, such as Redoubt News, also appear unlikely to be reliable. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:48, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Rosguill,

Thank you for your input on my article. I believe I have addressed the formatting, spelling, etc. If you concur, please delete that tag.

You also stated that the Daily World was not considered reliable and the Redoubt was questionable. I found an NPR article that covered much of what those reference by those two sources and cited it where applicable. I hope this will improve the article. I left all the current citations in place though. Should I remove Daily World and Redoubt citations if there is NPR citation that would do?

The 2 items I found on Daily World or Redoubt that I could not find in other places was 1) that they were FEMA certified responders. Since their leader/founder Marshall has a Master in Physician Assistant Studies and used to teach Emergency First Response at the college level, it kind of seemed natural that they would be. (I started out writing a Wikipedia article on Marshall who is running for State Representative and the more research I did, the more it seemed like the WA3%ers should be its own article.) But maybe, since Marshall’s teaching resume is not included here, I should delete the section of the article that talks about them being FEMA certified? 2) them building a ramp and them helping the town fix its well I could not find a second citation for those, but I think they are import because this is about a charity. The kind of charity they do seems pretty core. Plus, it shows actions, not words. Which segue into the topic.

You said I gave undo weight to the “opinions of the subject itself”. Do you mean A) That I spent too much time talking about what the subject’s opinion was? or B) That too many of my citations came ultimately from the source itself? Like, when the reporter reports that Marshall says x-y-z about his organization, even though that is not self-publication, the source is ultimately Marshall.

If you were meant (A), that is one of the reasons I want to show to talk about their actions.

If you meant (B), the I concur. I wish I had more sources that did not lead back to Marshall and I have added a few since I first published it. But there is no a lot out there good third hand sources out there.

For, example, the WA3%ers says they are constitutionalist and they are pro-government, and I have seen no evidence to dispute either of those claims, and in fact, no one disputes that they are constitutionalist. I did see where one report said they were a constitutionalist group and that they were anti-government. As I understand it, constitutionalists are by definition pro-government. The constitution CREATED the government. Constitutionalist are anti-governmental corruption/overreach. They maybe dead wrong in what they consider to be overreach, but none-the-less, it is the overreach they are opposed to, not the government.

When the reporter said the WA3%ers were anti-government, it was just a passing remark. Not the thrust of the article. She was not reporting that they were anti-government. She was just painting a picture, filling in some background to the article. I could put that that in the article that the reporter called them anti-government to make it more balances. But I don’t think that was what the report was trying to say and, based on the whole body of articles read, I don’t think they are. Two of them, including the founder/leader, are elected officials. E.g. They ARE the government. Plus, I have since found the NPR article that also says they are pro-government.

Another article said “critics” say they are anti-government. If they had cited a specific critic or and action or did that indicated that they were, I would have added that. But there is no way verify what “critics” say. What is the critics reason to think that? What is the source of the critic’s information? How reliable is that source.

I could, also, remove any mention of them being pro-government, but it seemed relative to the topic.

I went through similar mental exercises for various other points in the article. Any thoughts? Mary Wilkes (talk) 23:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Mary Wilkes, I've gone ahead and removed the copy edit tag. I'm also going to assume that by Daily World, you mean Daily Wire, the source that I actually took issue with (there don't appear to be any citations to anything called Daily World in the article). Information that cannot be cited to reliable sources should be removed.

Regarding the due weight, it's really both A and B. We should rely on independent sources as a rule. However, it's also not our place to make space for the subject of the article to rebut criticisms: our coverage of the subject should mirror the sum of coverage in reliable, secondary sources. If no such sources have commented on the subject's statements at length, it's not our place as Wikipedia editors to attempt to correct that.

As far as claims made in passing in reliable sources, you're right that they may not be worth mentioning, particularly if the claim is both made in passing and disputed by the group itself. I haven't seen the NPR source so I'm going out on a limb here, but I think that at this point it's probably best just remove any mention of pro-/anti- government stance due to the lack of consensus among available sources. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:09, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Rosguill ^talk

Thank you again for your help in improving my article. I have tried to address the remaining issues in the following way:

POSSIBLY UNRELIABLE SOURCES:

I removed all citations from the Daily Wire. The NPR article covered the same points that I previously cited from the Daily Wire.

I did not remove the reference to them being pro-government for reasons of NPOV. (see below) But did change it to say that "Although some consider them anti-government, they consider themselves pro-government. Their website states that they are a pro-government organization but with the caveat that they support the government 'as long as that government follows the ... Constitution.'" I included a citation to NPR regarding the anti-government reference.

With 3 exceptions, I found additional citation for self-reported statements. They are:

1) that they are "focused on charitable works and community preparedness." 2) that they were FEMA Certified; and 3) that they were pro-government, so long as the government follows the constitution

I reviewed Wikipedia's criteria for self-published sources (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_or_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves) and believes it meets the criteria.

You had mentioned the if the FEMA Certification was not from a published source, that it was not notable enough to include in the article, however, this was from a published source. It was just that the source was publishing a quote from Marshall, so it was a self reported.

UNDUE WEIGHT So, having (hopefully) addressed the issue of self-reported statements, the other issue, as I understand it, is NPOV.

The Wikipedia guidelines for Undue Weight state that "To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute." But it also says, "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Flat Earth)."

I interpret this to mean, in essences, you cannot give undue weight in the form of too much coverage to the concept that the Earth is flat. To that same end, it seems that would not be possible to give too much coverage to WA3%ers' points of view, since that is essentially what the article is about.

I have tried to make the article more "balanced" by referencing other opinions about the WA3%ers. I looked for more articles to include more alternate opinions. (That is when I found the NPR article) and have included what I have found.

This has hopefully addressed the undue weight issue. If not could you be more specific in what you are looking for.

Sincerely, Mary Wilkes (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Mary Wilkes, I still have some concerns about the way that the context of the "inclusivity" dispute is presented. I think that it would be better to frame it as being primarily about their affiliation or lack thereof with the national 3%ers organization, which is where the original concerns and the SPLC categorization seem to stem from. When I get a chance, possibly this weekend, I'll try to write an alternative version myself. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Rosguill

Thank you again for your attention to this matter.

FYI: I do not think there is a dispute as to whether they are associated with the National organization or not. I saw several references stating that they were not, and none stating that they were.

It is not something that belongs in the article due to lack of verifiable source and prohibition on publishing original research, but WA3 and National pretty much hate each other. I saw some nasty tweets and/or facebook posts between the groups, which I believe have since been taking down.

I talk in the article about WA3 working with a left-wing group to resist white supremacy groups in WA. That group is the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club, an armed group of Antifa. To put it in perspective, WA3 appears to align more with gun-carrying Antifa than they do with National.

One thing I did not know until I found the NPR article (and therefore is not included in the Wikipedia article) is that WA3 was originally part of National, but Marshal broke with them and founded WA3 because he had issues with National. Perhaps that should be added to the article?

On a different note, I realized belatedly that I named the article “Washington State Three Percent.” The last word in the title should be Percenters, not Percent. Is there a way to fix that?

Mary Wilkes (talk) 16:17, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Mary Wilkes, regarding the affiliation with national, I had been under the impression that the main cause for the dispute over whether or not the group was a hate group was due to critics linking the group to the national three percenter organization. Having now read through the NPR source, I see that it's more complicated than that. As I said before, I'll try to take a stab at rewriting that in a more due manner this weekend. As for renaming the article, that's much more straightforward and I'll take care of that after making this comment. For future reference, you can find instructions for retitling articles at H:MOVE. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:24, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Rosguill - Mary Wilkes (talk) 19:58, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

miss catigorized

The Washington State Three Percenters are a registered 501c4 non-profit

Reference; Sos.wa.gov FreedomOath (talk) 01:28, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

While reliable sources do acknowledge that the organization is legally incorporated as a non-profit, they nevertheless refer to it as a militia _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:59, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

You are simply wrong about them being a militia, militia's are illegal in the state of Washington. User:TheRogueLibertarian —Preceding undated comment added 18:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Here are two reliable sources calling them a militia: [1], [2]. Can you find any that say they aren't? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

  mm, per this edit you have a conflict of interest with this subject and should not be editing the article directly at all. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)