Talk:Operation Smile

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[edit] Point of view and sources

As it stands, this article appears to be drawn in very large part from the organization's own publicity materials (chunks are in fact verbatim from its website; the section headed "Our achievements" is something of a tip-off). In addition, the article does not include any material on the questions that have occasionally been raised regarding the organization's work, especially in a series of articles in the New York Times in 1999-2000. Robertissimo 05:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I deleted (geordan)'s comment because it used offensive language and made some serious but unsubstantiated negative claims; I deleted the anonymous comment re: the 40% stat because no source was cited, it was negative, and it was unsigned. (See the Talk Page Guidelines if you've got an issue with either of these changes.) I understand editing for veracity and neutrality, but some of the stuff on this page was plain defamatory. Let's keep it clean, folks. Re: Robertissimo's note above, a quick read of the current page makes clear that it has been addressed. --MingusFace 00:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the source cited for the 40% statistic was the organization's tax return. Does that not qualify as a source? Both the totals on how much is spent on administration and fund raising, and the salaries of executives may be found on the publicly available tax returns for all US non profit organizations.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.181.89.93 (talk • contribs).

The figures may or may not be true, but they definitely need to be traced to a reliable source per WP's guidelines on attribution. As MingusFace notes, the article is somewhat better than when I first commented above last October, but it could still use considerable improvement, especially when it comes to sourcing and rigorous neutrality. Robertissimo 13:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. How would you suggest one correctly attribute the figures. They appear on the organization's tax returns, which are included as pdf files on their own website - so the source itself would be Operation Smile. Do I need to make a hyperlink to the page?

I'd say that a link to the return and a reference would suffice. But in the interest of neutrality, it would be best to contextualize the statistic - i.e., is it a blip on the radar, or symptomatic of a larger trend toward largesse by the organization? If it's not representative of their expenditures over the longer term, that should be noted -- ideally, if one is quoting a numeric statistic, the relevant context would also be a numeric statistic. "In 2005, the organization reported spending 40% of its revenues on XYZ [source]. Over the past (five, ten, twenty, etc.) years, this figure has been at the XX% level [source]. Relative to other organizations its size, the average is XX% [source]... The organization attributes these costs to XYZ. [source]" and so forth. Also, please sign your comments - it's a matter of courtesy. --MingusFace 16:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)