Talk:Autism Speaks/Archive 1

Archive 1

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I'm not an experienced editor, but I believe the last edit under "Controversies" would violate NPOV and also is uncited? Aoibheannniamh 20:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, there is no citation and this is a violation of NPOV, so I removed it. Aoibheannniamh 01:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Celebrities/ Jon Stewart/ mercury & autism controversies

The controversy section, while currently NPOV (good) is also woefully minimal. I'd add more but I'm sleepy.  :) The not-merely-unproven-but-repeatedly-disproven "mercury in thimerosal causes autism" controversy is highly topical, and in the news today. The settlement a couple weeks ago of a case that was to be a test case before the Autism Omnibus quasijudicial proceedings has stirred a great deal of interest.

On another topic, I see that Jon Stewart and other celebrities, including Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel, are attached to an upcoming charity event (overbooked, too-many stars, something along those lines) for Autism Speaks. This may be recurring, and is probably noteworthy. Eh Nonymous (talk) 02:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

In the article, this is mentioned as a controversy:

"In January 2008 a critical parody of the Autism Speaks website was taken down after Autism Speaks sent a letter to the parody website's developer, an anonymous blogger who is autistic, asking the blogger to stop using the Autism Speaks name and logo without permission, and claiming the spoof could confuse people looking for information about autism. Other parody sites immediately sprang into existence."

I believe this is not a true controversy, in the sense of being an important public controversy. It was, I believe, a relatively insignificant problem when compared to a true controversy, which I believe is something of far greater importance and seriousness, generally. Should it be removed?--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 06:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

General note

As a general note, posts from online forums are rarely acceptable as reliable sources for encyclopedic content. Articles should be based on verifiable information from reliable secondary sources. If there's a question about using an online forum as a source in a specific context, please seek input here or at the reliable sources noticeboard. MastCell ^Talk 18:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. The burden of proof is on those wishing to include material. Hence, I'll be moving unreliably sourced controversial material from the article to this page. If better sources are found, it can be re-introduced. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 19:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

As a result of all this two sources in the article were marked as questionable, and I removed them. I removed one of the newly-unsourced claims (couldn't find a reliable source for it), and rewrote the other claim to rely on the New Scientist article, which is reliable. Eubulides (talk) 21:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Text moved from article

Redacted material

In the video, Alison Tepper Singer, senior vice-president of Autism Speaks, tells within earshot of her autistic daughter that she considered driving off a bridge with the daughter in the car.

Blogs are not a reliable source. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing was terrible: A said B. C did D. A is responsible for D. Not acceptable, especially when names are named. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The scene occurred in a heavily publicized and publicly viewable video that millions of people have seen. Are you saying it's not verifiable? Perl (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Additionally it created a backlash from the autistic community. Perl (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Was that all I removed? No, it wasn't. I removed a series of unrelated snippets which were carefully combined so as to seemingly associate a quite unconnected person with the death of a child. Argument by innuendo is entirely unacceptable. Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Still, the scene itself is notable and is the main reason for the controversy about the film. I added a sentence noting that controversy and citing a reliable source. Eubulides (talk) 02:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Official View on Vaccines

While the organization's position on the autism/vaccine connection is certainly worth including (figuring out what their angle on it was was the reason I came to this page), the view of a relative of the people who happened to have founded the organization does not give any significant insight into the position of the orginization itself. The position of Autism Speaks on vaccines should be described using information from people who are actually authorized to speak on its behalf. -- 76.204.88.100 (talk) 02:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point, thanks; I made this change to try to help matters. Eubulides (talk) 06:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Cure Autism Now

In the Mergers section of this article, about Cure Autism Now (CAN), the #1 source is inaccurate I believe, as it is an article on Autism Speaks and the founding Wright parents, and has little to do with CAN. This source seems better, especially the 2nd 4th 5th paragraphs. This source also supports other sentences in the first paragraph of the section about CAN, and perhaps should be used at the end of each sentence.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 20:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Read all the way through to the end of the first source and you'll see why it's used. You can add the other one too, but please leave the first source in. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 20:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I read it through again, and I myself don't see anything that would be a specific source for anything in the first paragraph about CAN in this article. In contrast, at the link I provide, there are numerous and very specific statements that are direct sources for most if not all of the statements in this wikipedia article section on CAN. Could you provide the specific quotes from the New York Times article that you believe serve as a source for that paragraph? Sorry if I'm overlooking something.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 01:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about the whole paragraph, but I thought the issue in contention was that CAN was devoting money to a search for "unconventional therapies". Which is taken from this part of the NYT article:

Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/us/18autism.html?pagewanted=2':
“	The most distinctive aspect of Autism Speaks is its alliance with Autism Coalition for Research and Education, an advocacy group; the National Alliance for Autism Research, devoted to scientific research into potential genetic causes, with high standards for peer review; and Cure Autism Now, which has championed unconventional theories and therapies. Which wing of the merged charity is ascendant? Some establishment scientists and parents now fear it is The Mercurys. They point to Cure Autism Now’s having more seats than the National Alliance does on the board of directors and the growing number of research projects that focus on environmental causes.	”

I think this is the original NYT article that was used to write the paragraph in the first place. It doesnt say anything about the origin of CAN, no. I figured that part was okay.

Also, I think the general policy is that if the same source is used to support each sentence in a paragraph, it is okay to just link it once from that paragraph, to avoid the ugliness of having every sentence followed by a ref tag. I could be wrong about that being official policy but I've seen it used before. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 02:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I see. You were providing a source for the specific approach of CAN. I was focusing only on sourcing the general statements about CAN, which can be found in the second link I added.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

In the Controversy section, I read the statement by Alison Singer, and think the statement in the article about what Singer argues is inaccurate, and also lacking in clarity. From the Autism Speaks article, "...Alison Singer, Senior Vice President of Autism Speaks, explained the position on cure is for regressive or low-functioning individuals and not for overall autism spectrum disorders.[16]" Perhaps better: "Alison Singer states that the desire for a cure is often most strongly had by parents of (a) severely autistic children, and, (b) autistic children who have become even more severely affected later in life (a condition referred to as "regressive autism"). Singer states that the desire for a cure may be different among parents of Asperger's Syndrome children, and among person with Aspergers themselves." If you think there is room in the article for it, I could also provide some specific quotes here from Singer.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This statement should be made more clear I think: "This has led to criticism from some persons with autism for lack of inclusion with the argument that autistics should be included in research and advocacy for themselves.[19]" Maybe better: "Some with autism and Aspergers Syndrome criticize Autism Speaks for not having anyone with autism or Aspergers in the administration of the organization." Unclear statement that "autistics should be included in research and advocacy for themselves." One, autistics are included in research with Autism Speaks. Also the advocacy views of autistics is seriously considered by Autism Speaks. The main point here is the lack of autistics in the Autism Speaks administration. Also, I'm not sure why this is a "controversy". Yes some with autism and Aspergers have criticized this, but a controversy?--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Controversies Section (Debates Section)

Paragraph removed due to concerns that it is a coatrack

Autism Speaks advocates for a cure to autism. Seeking a cure is debated by some persons with autism and some families. In an article to members of The Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership [GRASP], Alison Singer (Senior Vice President of Autism Speaks) states that the desire for a cure is often most strongly held by parents of (a) severely autistic children, and, (b) autistic children who have become even more severely affected later in life (a condition referred to as "regressive autism"). Singer states that the desire for a cure may be not as strong, or not held at all, among parents of children with Asperger's Syndrome, and among persons with Aspergers Syndrome. Simultaneously, GRASP published an article for Autism Speaks members to explain that the term "cure" has a medical, scientific, and personal meaning to some persons with autism and other spectrum disorders and thus the use of such a word may both be inaccurate and hurtful.

Note that only the first statement cites any source other than GRASP. This paragraph seems not to document controversy so much as to provide a platform for GRASP to criticise Autism Speaks. Comments from other editors are welcome. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 20:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

From my reading of this section, both sides are represented. There is the statement from Autism Speaks senior vice president to GRASP. And there is the statement from GRASP to Autism Speaks. The controversy, according to the original editor of this section, is that many with autism (especially Aspergers I believe) object in various ways to organizations and others interested in a cure for all autistic and all Aspergers people. Anyway, I thought this section was at least reasonable as it provided both sides of the "controversy" ... but I still was to edit the last sentence to expand and clarify.

I wanted to add/ask -- should the last two paragraphs of the Controversies section also be removed? I asked about this in more detail in a previous note in this Talk page. Seems the blogger issue is not really a controversy in the strong sense, nor the discussion about how Autism Speaks doesn't have administration members who have autism or Aspergers. Not sure if these are truly controversies. A 'controversy' entails, I believe, considerable public response, action, etc; and considerable and serious media coverage from notable media. Seems the blogger issue and member issue are issues for various people (perhaps a lot of people) but not truly controversies. The blogger issue seems more sensational and tabloid like, and received limited media coverage; the New Scientist article cited is very sensational, and has many overstatements...the "dispute" was actually very small compared to other things, and very short lived, but yes pounced upon by many with and without autism who run blogs and websites. I wonder if both should be removed.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 21:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• There is a real dispute between Autism Speaks and those who argue that autism is a condition and not a disorder, and this dispute needs to be covered. It isn't being covered now, with the paragraph removed. However, that paragraph was not good coverage, as it emphasized one group (GRASP) rather than covering the controversy neutrally (it goes well beyond GRASP). It would be better to cite secondary sources about the dispute, and not to refer to primary sources from GRASP itself and from Autism Speaks.
• There is also a real criticism of Autism Speaks's members, which often overlaps the criticism mentioned in the previous bullet. This criticism also should be covered by secondary sources, which is not the case now.
• That the blogger story is small potatoes, and was wp:RECENTism when it was put in. On the other hand, it is the best supported right now (with a citation to New Scientist, a secondary source). I'd be inclined to leave the point in, though it might not hurt to reword the coverage to make it encyclopedic, discussing the general issue rather than focusing so much on that particular blogger.

Eubulides (talk) 21:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Re first point, yes it's a dispute, but a controversy? Maybe the section should be 'Disputes' or 'Debates'? Also to note, there is another dispute against the people disputing Autism Speaks. That is, it's not a matter of AS providing their goals and statements, and then the other side providing their objections and criticisms. The other side's objections etc are debated...will find some sources...but essentially, among some debates that come to mind, it's argued they are unwilling to face the various realities of autism and their negative impact on the autistics and their families and others, the true nature of the "pervasive impairments in communication, behavior, social interaction, emotion, social and work functioning, thinking, etc; that they are "delusional" in the weak sense of being unwilling to face a widely accepted reality; that their movement/ideas etc are largely psychological, arising from the lack of any major treatment. Things like this. So there are actually 3 sides to the story. But anyway, not sure if this is a controversy, or a debate.

Re the blogger issue, I wonder if there should be other sources besides the New Scientist article, as the article seems very sensational and not neutral/objective. But anyway, a controversy? Seems more like a transitory debate; and it started with a copyright violation and things related, rather than Autism Speaks wanting to do anything personal to the blogger. This isn't represented in the New Scientist article I believe. I believe Autism Speaks accepts dissent very well, but not when it involves use or manipulation of their copyrighted intellectual property by anonymous website or blogger owners who then start and proliferate gossip on autism forums.

--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 22:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Removing that one paragraph makes the paragraph immediately before it look stranded. Previously, the article talked about the blogger and the parody site she created, and then the next paragraph explained why some autistics are angry. Now, without the explanation, it just mentions the parody and readers who don't know better will probably think it was just some kid having fun. I think that the paragraph should be restored. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 00:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, if the paragraph comes back, "regressive autism" doesn't mean what the paragraph seems to imply there. Read regressive autism for info: the "later in life" is usually about 2 or 3 years old. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 00:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Regarding regressive autism, thanks for making this point and the reference. Helpful to me.
• Rethinking my previous comments. Regarding the paragraphs in the Controversies section, the so framed controversy between Autism Speaks and anti-cure (put generally) people, is really, I think, a debate between pro-cure and anti-cure, rather than anything specific to Autism Speaks. As such I don't think it is a controversy/debate that is specific to Autism Speaks. And as such, I don't think it should be put in this article on Autism Speaks. In it's place, perhaps better to have a general link in a template, such as the template already existing at the bottom. In the template there is a Controversies section with several wikipedia articles linked It's there that the pro-cure anti-cure and other debates are discussed.
• Again I think the blogger issue started simply as a copyright issue, not Autism Speaks wishing to control what the blogger wrote about. After all, on the Autism Speaks message board, there is considerable dissent - maybe 50% or more of the discussion is dissent, and many people who joined the Autism Speaks message board are fully opposed to Autism Speaks, and their posts and threads are given complete freedom, except when there is outright abuse, personal offensiveness, etc. As such I don't think the blogger issue is remotely a controversy and perhaps should be removed from the article.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 02:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

First paragraph of Controversies section. It's a debate between the Wright founders, and their daughter Katie (mother of autistic son Christian) about autism causes and research funding. Is this a true controversy, or rather, a debate? Yes it's a large debate within Autism Speaks, but a controversy? Hope acceptable, I'm going to change the section name to Debates, as this seems more accurate and neutral than Controversies.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The wikipedia article on the film Autism Every Day, I saw today, was extremely biased, poorly sourced, etc etc. I revised it quite a bit and will add some parts of this article's Debates section there. I added the Autism Speaks link next to the Autism Every Day wikipedia link in order to provide a better source than the current wikipedia article.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments on rewrite

• The rewritten lead relies too heavily on press releases. These are less-reliable sources than news articles written by reputable organizations. Wikipedia should not quote from press releases unless there's a very good reason (which there isn't, here).
• "Debates" is not a good title. Rarely are formal debates held. "Disputes" would be better.
• The rewritten text makes it sound like there is a debate within Autism Speaks about whether vaccines cause autism. But the cited source does not say that.
• The rewritten text makes it sound like Katie Wright is a member of, or speaks for, Autism Speaks.
• The rewritten text says that the Wrights personally funded Thierry's film. But the source (Friedman 2007) makes it clear the funding was through Autism Speaks.
• There are too many direct quotes; this raises a WP:WEIGHT and style issue. It's not Wikipedia's job to enumerate every little dispute Autism Speaks has ever had with extensive quotes from primary sources. It's Wikipedia's job to write an encyclopedic article about the organization, preferably relying on secondary sources.
• The article should avoid phrases like "In contrast" unless those phrases are supported by the cited source.
• I made this change to try to fix the article with the above comments in mind.

Eubulides (talk) 06:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

At your revisions

• Line 1 - I expanded on things by providing a quote from the organization itself on what they do, and provided their press release source for this. Your (and the previous) statement is, I think, incomplete, vague...focuses on only one thing, and they do a multitude of equally important things. I worked to expand on this, to make it fuller and more complete. I provided more information.

• That part is the lead. As per WP:LEAD it's supposed to briefly summarize what's in the body: it's not suppose to cover a topic that is not covered in the body. The lengthy quote you added did not have that property. Also, as a matter of style, Wikipedia normally should summarize what reliable sources say: it should not quote directly from press releases. It's better to use a reliable source about Autism Speaks that is not generated by Autism Speaks itself; and it's better to summarize what it says rather than quote from it. Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for correcting me that Katie Wright is not a part of the Autism Speaks administration.
• Line 42 - I thought it would be worth separating the two issues related to the film Autism Every Day, rather than having them in one paragraph, and run into one another.

• That's what the current Autism Speaks does, no? Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• You reverted to "The film was criticized for a scene..." This I think leads the reader to think it was criticized by either most people, or by a major authority on the matter. Neither is the case. It was criticized by some people...actually very few in number comparatively. Most major news sources make no such criticisms, and address the scene directly and have very different accounts of it, such as these sources. Hard-Hitting Look at Autism Is Being Shown at Sundance New York Times, January 21, 2007 Uses of Disenchantment: TV Anchor-Mom Fights Autism and Films It New York Observer, June 4, 2006

• Normally I wouldn't interpret "film was criticized" in that way. For example, when Wunderlich wrote about Pinocchio by saying "Disney's film was criticized for frightening children", I'd interpret that to mean some critics said it frightened children, not that all critics said that, or that a major authority said it. That being said, it wouldn't hurt to briefly add something saying who criticized it. Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• I added "commissioned and paid all film costs", taking this directly from the Fox News article This makes things more specific...it was vague before.

• It was Autism Speaks who commissioned it, not the Wrights directly. The wording used implied that it came directly from the Wrights. Anyway, this level of detail doesn't belong here; it belongs in the article about the film. Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Now that you've clarified that Katie Wright is not a part of Autism Speaks, I myself don't think the paragraph on the dispute between she and her parents (the founders of Autism Speaks) is relevant for this article on Autism Speaks. It's a familial dispute, not an inter-administration dispute. While interesting, perhaps not relevant to this encyclopedic article. I think the paragraph should be removed. (Also the paragraph on the blogger issue, and the continued removal of the pro-cure anti-cure debate which is not a debate specific to Autism Speaks but rather a more general debate that is covered in other wikipedia articles, especially at the articles linked below in the Controversy part of the template.

• The dispute between the Wrights and their daughter is mentioned in many articles about Autism Speaks. It's notable for that reason. The blogger paragraph is far less important than the paragraph about Katie Wright. Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• I wanted to note that I've noticed persistent attempts in articles about autism, autism organizations, autism books, films, certain autistic people, to add as much critical, sensational, etc material as possible. I myself don't think these Controversy, Dispute, Criticism sections should be allowed. Everyone can do their own articles, and let people go where then want on wikipedia. A lot of people want to steer people around on wikipedia for particular biased purposes. Same with the templates that are added here and there.

• I'm not a fan of Dispute sections either, but Autism Speaks is a controversial organization, and this controversy needs to be covered somehow; if not in a Dispute section, in some other way. Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• I tend to not agree that it is a controversial organization. Yes there has been criticism, but whether it is to the degree that warrants that the entire organization can be characterized as controversial is debatable, and likely not true. It is controversial to certain people, but on the whole, not, I believe.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm curious if others agree with the recent edit of my previous editing (expanding, quoting, sources, etc).--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sure! Other opinions are welcome. Eubulides (talk) 07:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Regarding a comment you made at the top in the Talk page You objected to the removal by the other editor SHEFFIELDSTEEL. My comments within your quote in bold. You wrote: "There is a real dispute between Autism Speaks and those who argue that autism is a condition and not a disorder, The discussion in this article was not about condition vs disorder, but rather, regarding the desire for a cure and this dispute needs to be covered. Autism Speaks as a whole, I believe, doesn't dispute the anti-cure anti-disorder parties. The statement by Autism Speaks's Alison Singer was more of a personal message to GRASP, and didn't contain any dispute against anti-cure parties. She simply expressed understanding for the lesser or absent of desire for a cure etc among some with Aspergers and some parents of children with Aspergers. You won't find anything on Autism Speaks extensive website, nor any of their statements to the press with disputes against anti-cure and anti-disorder parties, I believe. From what I understand, Autism Speaks doesn't engage in these disputes. It isn't being covered now, with the paragraph removed. However, that paragraph was not good coverage, as it emphasized one group (GRASP) rather than covering the controversy neutrally (it goes well beyond GRASP). It would be better to cite secondary sources about the dispute, and not to refer to primary sources from GRASP itself and from Autism Speaks." I think the objections by parties against Autism Speaks should be kept in their own articles, and there are plenty of those articles...see the template controversy section. Also, I myself tend to think your trying to press this matter with getting these arguments into the Autism Speaks article...you seem to have a strong need to have these arguments in this article. And, "There is also a real criticism of Autism Speaks's members, which often overlaps the criticism mentioned in the previous bullet. This criticism also should be covered by secondary sources, which is not the case now." Seem my previous comments --ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm new at wikipedia so apologize for not being that familiar with editing formatting, rules, etc.

(outdent) No problem with formatting. It sounds like the main controversy here is whether there is a controversy :-). But my experience in reading articles about Autism Speaks is that, like any sufficiently large organization that deals with autism, there is controversy about it. For example, here is a recent article in a reliable press source that talks about the cure dispute (and other disputes) with respect to Autism Speaks:

• Jardine C (2008-11-09). "Should we want to cure autism?". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2008-11-12.

• I wanted to reiterate something I mentioned above, now buried I guess. Regarding the anti-cure and anti-autism-is-a-disorder parties, there are criticisms of their position as well, but not formally from Autism Speaks. I recall Diane Sawyer in a linkable Good Morning America interview (which I'll try to find shortly) saying about a parent disinterested in a cure for her child and believing that nothing was in need of being changed for her severely non-verbal autistic child, that the parent was in a kind of self-serving denial; Sawyer used a more neutral and sensitive phrase though. Anyway there is this 3rd side to the debate, and I'll try to find sources for it. Generally, it's argued anti-cure etc parties are unwilling to face the various realities of autism and their negative impact on the autistics and their families and others, the true nature of the pervasive, severe impairments in communication, behavior, social interaction, emotion, social and work functioning, thinking, etc; that they are "delusional" in the weak sense of being unwilling to face a widely accepted reality; that their movement/ideas etc are largely psychological , from the lack of any major treatment, etc. So maybe this side of the debate should also be covered. Criticisms of the criticizers of Autism Speaks.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 10:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Certainly the whole dispute should be covered, but with due WP:WEIGHT since this is supposed to be an article about Autism Speaks, not about all the controversies in autism (we have Controversies in autism for that). A good way to have proper weight is to try to cover the various disputes with about the same weight that reliable sources about Autism Speaks use. Eubulides (talk) 17:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

This sort of thing should not be swept under the rug; Wikipedia needs to cover it. I agree that the current coverage is not that good (it emphasizes relatively minor issues like that blogger); but overall there does need to be good coverage. Perhaps the Jardine article could be used to improve the coverage in Wikipedia. Eubulides (talk) 08:39, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• About the re-revised sentence at the top of the article "The Wrights founded Autism Speaks to help find a cure for autism spectrum disorders ....[1]" This is fundamentally incomplete, and misleading. See my earlier comments, and my previous revision. Why did the Wrights found Autism Speaks? Ask them; they are the authorities on why they founded it. And what do they state? I quoted it before. Again, to "accelerate and fund biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and cure for autism spectrum disorders; to increase awareness of the nation's fastest-growing developmental disorder; and to advocate for the needs of affected individuals and families." If this is too much quoting, then why not simply paraphrase it, and include each tenant, not just the cure goal? The cure goal is one of a multitude of things they do.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 10:38, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Aside, I edited the article on the Autism Speaks commissioned film Autism Every Day. It seemed full of problems. Could you read my revisions and provide me with your feedback? I still have some things to add there, so it's still very incomplete. But it seemed like yet another article set up for the attack by certain autism rights movement parties who seem often involved in neutrality issues, biased recruitment issues, lacking citation issues, providing forums blogs and personal websites as sources, etc etc.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 10:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• OK, but the lead paragraph is supposed to be incomplete. See WP:LEAD: the lead is supposed to summarize the rest of the article, and by necessity it is supposed to omit lesser details. For example, the lead's current "promote autism research" accurately and adequately summarizes the quote's "accelerate and fund biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and cure for autism spectrum disorders". The problem here is not with the lead, it's that there's nothing in the body that talks about this aspect of Autism Speaks. I suggest adding a new section History, which paraphrases the quote you mention, and which adds further details about the history (e.g., founding date, founders, etc.). This is all info that is currently summarized in the lead and really needs expansion in the body of the article.
• I responded in Talk:Autism Every Day #Neutrality re that article.

Eubulides (talk) 17:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The first two sentences of the first paragraph of the article are redundant ... the Wrights 'founded' it for .... Next sentence, the Wrights 'founded' it for ...

I previously edited it to make it clearer, more expansive, to do away with the redundancy, etc. All my edits were removed I believe. Unclear why.

Again the #1 source is not neutral. 'Autism debate strains a family and its charity'. In my opinion it's an attempt to immediately steer the reader into being exposed to various disputes. It's an article centered on some negatives....it's a somber article throughout. In the first paragraph of the Autism Speaks article, the issue is about the founding of Autism Speaks, and the source should be specific and limited to this I think, not a large article primarily about the Wright's inter-familial problems, and problems with the contractual and payment arrangement for the movie they/Autism Speaks commissioned Autism Every Day. And again this #1 source is used 8 times. To me, this is very unacceptable. I just did see the two new sources below here in this Talk page...to me they seem irrelevant...there is no relevant information to, for example, the simple needs of the first paragraph...and the article is prohibitively long and contains a massive amount of totally irrelevant, complicated information.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I removed the #1 persistent link (used 8 times in article) from the Cure Autism Now section of this article. See my comments from over the last several days, starting with my last one above. Yes I know the existing source, which I added recently, is a press release from Autism Speaks about CAN and Autism Speaks, but it seems to be a very clear statement from them about each organization. It's simple, and factual. They are saying what they do. We don't need others (other media) to tell us what they do, right? If I want to tell you why I started my company X and what my company X does, I'll tell you...I know better than others...any any press releases about my company X that use my statements are just as good. I don't need any media to tell you what I do. I'll look for other articles that are about CAN, it's origin, the people involved, and not articles that include a substantial amount of negative content, outstanding debates, dated debates, controversies, criticisms, etc. Am curious of others opinions on this. (I wanted to see if others could be involved besides the couple people so far...how do I do this)?--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for spotting the redundancy with "founded". Can you suggest a briefer wording that removes the redundancy?
• The edits to the lead were removed, as described above, because they altered the lead so that it no longer summarized the body, and because they introduced extensive quotes from press releases. It is better for Wikipedia not to rely heavily on press releases from organizations it describes, as they are (almost by definition) not neutral sources. As per WP:LEAD, the lead should briefly summarize the body.
• The New York Times article is a reliable source, and covers Autism Speaks more neutrally than an Autism Speaks press release would. Please see WP:RS on why Wikipedia prefers reliable, third-party sources to press releases.
• When giving a source for a fact X, there's no major need to prefer a source that talks only about X. What matters most is whether the source is reliable; that's far more important than the specificity of the source.
• The two sources (Singh et al. 2007, PMID 17237806; and Silverman & Brosco 2007, PMID 17404137) were suggested as sources for the merger of Autism Speaks with Cure Autism Now, not as sources for the lead. They both address that topic, albeit briefly. These sources have the advantage of being published in peer-reviewed medical journals.
• In rereading my comments, I fear that they are coming off as being a bit too forbidding. They aren't intended to be that way; I have a telegraphic style, as I'm often typing in a bit of a hurry, and sometimes it comes out too clipped. Anyway, the main thing here is to find reliable sources, and to accurately summarize what they say. Third-party sources are better (see WP:RS). Peer-reviewed sources are better (see WP:MEDRS). A large part of the work in writing a solid Wikipedia article is coming up with good sources.

Eubulides (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Additional sources

• A separate question. I noticed that most of the additional sources I linked have been removed or changed to the following one, and in a multitude of places (8 places I believe)
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Gross J, Strom S (2007-06-18). "Autism debate strains a family and its charity", New York Times. Retrieved on 9 October 2007.
• This appears overused (8 places I believe)...also there appears to be bias in using it this much as the article is largely a critical and negative one, which only tangentially mentions some of the positive purposes of Autism Speaks. There are many other more neutral, non-critical articles that could be used about the positive aspects of Autism Speaks...I'll check some more, and I think I provided some in my first edits. See my previous additions and edits that were largely removed.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 20:42, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it is overused, but all eight of those links have been in the article since before you arrived: compare the current state of the article to the way it was back in September. Even the one in the CAN paragraph was there in September too. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 21:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Recently I added some different sources at the now redirected Cure Autism Now article...will try to find some more shortly. Should I add those sources here now? I think they add some variety, and neutrality. But yes they appear to be press releases, but to me they seem informative. But I'm sure there are major press articles on the merger (New York Times, etc etc). At the CAN Talk page, a recent comment in reply to my comment there has these links to my recent revisions.Here is the page as it existed immediately before I redirected it (you can find all of the old revisions in the page history; they haven't been deleted).

--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 22:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really an authority on the science of autism or what goes where; I'd wait for Eubulides if you want advice on something like that. Personally I'd say go ahead and add them to the article. Most of what you've done so far seems to be basically agreeable. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 23:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) The sources aren't terrible, but they are press releases and we really should prefer secondary sources such as Gross & Strom 2007 when available. I did a quick Google Scholar search and found the following sources on the subject published in scholarly journals, which would be better.

• Singh J, Hallmayer J, Illes J (2007). "Interacting and paradoxical forces in neuroscience and society". Nat Rev Neurosci. 8 (2): 153–60. doi:10.1038/nrn2073. PMC 1885680. PMID 17237806.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Silverman C, Brosco JP (2007). "Understanding autism: parents and pediatricians in historical perspective". Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 161 (4): 392–8. doi:10.1001/archpedi.161.4.392. PMID 17404137.

Or perhaps you could find something else published in a reputable newspaper, which would be better than press releases anyway. Eubulides (talk) 00:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Cure Autism Now redirect RFC

There is apparently some debate as to whether Cure Autism Now should be merged and redirected here. I have initiated a request for comment on the talk page there and any and all input is welcome. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was useful when the redirect went directly to the CAN section of Autism Speaks, rather than to the top of Autism Speaks. I also did some revisions and additions of the CAN article earlier today, and I myself think it expands on CAN better than before, and gives a better variety of sources than the one source used 8 times at the AUtism Speaks article that is quite negative and critical in content. It's like the editor wants to expose the reader to all of the negative material in that source where ever possible. Seems other sources could be found that focus on certain things and not the critical, negative, controversial material. For example, just the merger. Then, just the goals of CAN and Autism Speaks. Etc. Not the disputes over payment for the Autism Speaks movie Autism Every Day and the disputes over what was portrayed in a brief instance the movie and why. Etc.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 22:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Those of us who support the merger, I think, can all agree that if it's merged it should go to the CAN section instead of the top. MastCell might have just not noticed that it was like that before when he restored the redirect. So I'll change it back. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 23:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Press release problems

This pair of edits replaced a high-quality reliable source (the NY Times) with press releases (which are lower-quality sources). Worse, the press releases do not support the stated claims. For example, the press releases do not contain the quote "world-class scientific advisers and celebrity fund-raisers like Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Simon". The change log for the edit said "More neutral, relevant source, without unrelated, negative, contentious content". I'm sorry, but this is not correct. Press releases are not more neutral than high-quality articles in the NY Times. Press releases, by definition, paint a flattering picture of the organization issuing the press releases. Furthermore, no matter how "biased" the NY Times is, it is not right to quote the newspaper without properly citing it. I made this further edit to fix the worst of the problem. Eubulides (talk) 07:23, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Autism Speaks #Cure Autism Now also relied too heavily on press releases. I found a reliable source on CAN (Coukell 2006) and rewrote the first paragraph to use that source. For the second paragraph, I toned down some of the press-release POV. I also fixed some punctuation problems. Here is the resulting edit to implement all this. Eubulides (talk) 08:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Bias; Administrator oversight needed

• At this point, given the repeated, revisions (today especially) to what was, I believe, more neutral content and neutral sources, and the persistent adding of negative content, usually unsourced, and contentious, and inappropriate for these simple introductions to CAN and Autism Speaks, I think oversight from others is needed. Also as I noted many times, many of the sources, especially #1 is highly negative, biased, and irrelevant to the simply issue at hand, namely to very simply introduce some basic things about Autism Speaks. I'll check with how to request this in the various administrators sections.
• Please also see my comments above.
• My opinion is that the recent editor is fundamentally not neutral. That initially he/she made a round of revisions in the past that were left to remain for a long time, which included 8 citations to the same highly negative, critical, contentious article; yes it is the New York Times, but that article is focused on highly contentious issues, controversies, disputes, and is primarily negative in content. As I noted above, this editor appears to have a need to expose the reader to this source where ever possible. I started to add sources that focused on the simple issues at hand, namely, and simply, providing a source for what Autism Speaks and CAN do, and who founded them and when.
• In the last editors comment above in the Talk page, disputed is the source I added on the celebrity fundraisers [[1]] This entire article is on the fundraisers. It's focused on it alone, along with a statement from Autism Speaks founder Mrs. Wright about the celebrities, and the article is without the negative content the editor feels a need to continuously add.
• Note at the top of this Talk page there is a "recruiting" banner: "There have been attempts to recruit editors of specific viewpoints to this article. If you've come here in response to such recruitment, please review the relevant Wikipedia policy on recruitment of editors, as well as the neutral point of view policy."
• To avoid another long summary comment by me here, I'll simply refer to my above comments in the Talk page about these various issues. I've provided my input on each of the issues over the last week
• I'm not interested in having this matter go in circles with the recent editor, who appears to have ignored all of the neutrality issues I've raised, and the at least reasonable and neutral editing I've made over the last week, and appears to have a very strong need to continuously add negative, critical commentary, often unsourced, and also often sourced with negative articles. This person appears to have a very strong need to expose the reader, where ever possible, to the contentious criticisms of Autism Speaks and CAN, starting from the first paragraph and the use of that citation now 5 times (down from 8). Also, there is now no citation in the first paragraph, and before I had added several that are at least reasonable. The person appears to still need to have the #1 source at the first one the reader is exposed to.
• If anyone has advise on how to proceed with something like an administrators review or what I should do, I'd appreciate it. I'd prefer to receive advice from editors other than the one involved in the above issues.
• In the last half hour I did some removals of the additions the editor made in the CAN section of this article. To me, they were the hallmark of bias. And the more I try diligently to focus on the positive and simple and basic introductory statements about Autism Speaks and CAN, the more the recent editor alters things to included more and more negative, and highly contentious content, which, also, I believe is not appropriate in simple introductory statements about these organizations. I strongly believe the person is highly biased and should have his/her editing overseen, from the start onward with regard to this article and the CAN article.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 20:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I composed the big comment at the start of the next section before seeing the above comments. Please read and respond to it. In the meantime, here are some thoughts in response to your comments.

• It would be helpful to get others' opinions, yes. I will ask for a 3rd opinion and follow up here.
• Press releases are less-reliable sources than sources in reputable newspapers like the New York Times. When both kinds of sources are available, we should prefer the newspapers. Of course, newspapers aren't perfect either, and there are even better sources than newspapers: but press releases are typically highly biased.
• There is no need to cite press releases when we have better sources on the same topic. This merely clutters up the article with less-reliable sources.
• Deleting well-sourced text is not a good idea. We should keep it; it was relevant and interesting. The Autism Speaks article should be all about Autism Speaks: it is not supposed to read like a press release.

Eubulides (talk) 04:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what you would want an admin to do. You two seem to be having a disagreement, but this is as civil of a content dispute as I've seen in a long time. You may want to pursue non-binding dispute resolution through WP:RFC or WP:MEDCABAL, as these are considered the lowest level of dispute resolution and are probably all that is needed in this case. Again, that's only if you guys are sure you can't come to some sort of agreement here. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:30, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. RFC seems a bit heavyweight, and the only time I ever tried MEDCABAL it failed miserably, so I asked for a 3rd opinion in #POV and press-release issues below. Eubulides (talk) 05:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

• The thing with MEDCABAL is that it only works if all involved parties are acting in a reasonable manner. That's why I suggested it here, and why it fails in so many other cases. ?Third Opinion is also a good way to go. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Coukell-sourced info about CAN

This pair of edits removed text from Autism Speaks #Cure Autism Now, with the comment "unsourced; negative content; persistent adding of negative content where not appropriate; request for oversight of persistent bias and negativity". Taking those comments one by one:

• The text is well supported by the cited source, Coukell 2006, as follows:

• The Autism Speaks text:

"who were invited to join NAAR's board but declined, impatient with what they considered NAAR's excess of caution in staying with the scientific establishment"

is supported by the following quote from the cited source:

"Upon learning that Shestack and Iversen planned to start an organization, the Londons invited them to join NAAR's board. But Shestack was impatient with what he considered NAAR's overly cautious commitment to working within the scientific establishment. During lunch one day, Shestack recalls, London told him, 'You can't hurry science.'"

The phrase "You can't hurry science" is a central point of the source: it's the source's title. A brief summary of the article's central point is entirely appropriate here.

• The Autism Speaks text:

"despite an initially negative reaction from scientists, who were concerned whether CAN could carry out rigorous work, and despite what CAN considered to be scientists' reluctance to share their data"

is supported by the following quote from the cited source:

"Their brainchild, the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE), would find the families, have blood samples taken and arrange for clinical assessments. But the scientific community was skeptical. The initial reaction was 'quite negative,' says Daniel Geschwind, a neurologist CAN brought in as an adviser. The chief concern, he says, was whether a parents' organization could carry out the work with the necessary scientific rigor. Shestack thinks the real objection was the requirement that data be freely shared. AGRE would open its files only to qualified researchers who promised to share the raw data from their analyses, rather than just the summary statistics that usually appear in scientific publications."

• Coukell 2006 is an article in proto, the house journal of Massachusetts General Hospital. The article is far more neutral about Cure Autism Now (CAN) than CAN's and Autism Speak's press releases.
• The text in question is not "negative". It accurately reports actions taken by CAN, and portrays them neutrally. The text is informative about the original motivation for, and major success of, Cure Autism Now.
• I don't (yet) think that oversight of this page is necessary, but if you disagree, please feel free to ask for oversight using the usual Wikipedia channels. WP:NPOV is an important principle of Wikipedia, and it should apply here.

For now I have restored the text, adding a bit more info about the citation. Eubulides (talk) 21:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

POV and press-release issues

As can be seen by recent discussions on this talk page, and by this series of edits, ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (OIAD) and I are disagreeing on how to keep Autism Speaks neutral. The topics of disagreement:

• OIAD feels that press releases issued by Autism Speaks and predecessor organizations are neutral, high-quality sources. As per WP:RS #Self-published sources I feel press releases should be avoided, and that it's better to rely on 3rd party sources such as the New York Times and medical magazines (see WP:RS #News organizations).
• OIAD prefers to cite primary sources (press releases) on single topics; I prefer to cite news and magazine articles (by comparison, secondary sources) that summarize broad aspects on Autism Speaks.
• When both press releases and news articles are available on the same subject, OIAD prefers to cite both; I'd rather just use the news article, as the press releases clutter up the article and WP:RS recomments against press releases.
• OIAD objects to (and has deleted) the following text, which OIAD feels is negative and unsourced.

• [Cure Autism Now founders] "were invited to join NAAR's board but declined, impatient with what they considered NAAR's excess of caution in staying with the scientific establishment."
• [Cure Autism Now established the AGRE] "despite an initially negative reaction from scientists, who were concerned whether CAN could carry out rigorous work, and despite what CAN considered to be scientists' reluctance to share their data."

However, as seen in #Coukell-sourced info about CAN above, the material is well-sourced by a medical magazine. I do not think this material is negative; but even if it were negative, it would not be proper to delete well-sourced material simply because it reports negative information about a subject.

• OIAD has inserted the following text, which reads like press release, most likely because it was sourced from a press release. This text is clearly POV in favor of Autism Speaks, and should be rewritten to avoid the POV:

• "an organization of parents, clinicians and leading scientists accelerating research to prevent, treat and cure autism"
• "whose goal is to speed up progress in identifying the genetic underpinnings of autism and autism spectrum disorders and by making this information available to the scientific community"
• "works to teach members of Congress about autism spectrum disorders and the related activities and concerns of researchers, advocates, and parents"

Obviously this is all written from my point of view. A 3rd-party opinion on all these disagreements would be welcome, as would further comments by OIAD.

Eubulides (talk) 05:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

Press releases and self-published information can sometimes be used as a source for what an organization thinks, as they are official communications from that organization. However, outside that limited use, they are not acceptable sources. In the edits linked to above, they are being used to support statements that are presented as fact. They are not reliable for this use, and independent material would need to be found.

By way of example, "Foo Group states that bar causes cancer^[1]", cited to a Foo Group press release, is fine, provided undue weight is not given to that position by including it at all. However, "bar causes cancer^[1]", cited to that same press release, is unacceptable without an independent reliable source. The usage here resembles the second case much more than the first. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:18, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm limiting the use of press releases to "for what an organization thinks, as they are official communications from that organization."
• What an organization's goals are is found by asking the organization. Not anyone else.
• Anyone else who states what the organizations goal's are has received the information from the organization itself. They otherwise wouldn't know.
• Press releases are the best source of information in specific instances, such as how I've used them.
• Over the last couple days, I've added many more NEWS articles to supplement the press releases.
• Editor Eubulides appears to be disruptive -- intollerant of more neutral changes, intollerant to being open to other sources, unwilling to alter what I believe is his obsessive need to use the one negative source where every possible (at first used 8 times throughout article (Autism Debate Strains A Family) which is about the inter-familial dispute among the Wrights (founders of Autism Speaks), and bickerings among the Wrights and the movie producers, allegations and gossip in article being thrown around about payment for the movie etc.
• Third opinion so far is entirely inadequate. Doesn't show a basic understanding of the issues involved in this editing problem.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 03:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, in the article's current state, press releases are being used to support all sorts of factual claims other than "what an organization thinks". For example, they're being used to support the claim that the organization has a "powerful board of directors", that it has "world-class scientific advisers", that it is "a powerful lobbying voice in Washington" and that it has "raised millions of dollars for autism research". This sort of POV wording is normal and expected in press releases, but it is out of place in Wikipedia, and the recent introduction of a lot of text sourced by press releases has added considerable bias to the article, in violation of WP:NPOV.
• As per WP:SPS, self-published sources such as press releases should be used with caution, and reliable sources such as news articles are preferred. This is Wikipedia policy; it's not just one editor's opinion. Unfortunately, in the article's current state, press releases are used extensively and uncritically, leading directly to the WP:NPOV violations mentioned in the previous bullet.
• Business Wire is not a news source; it is a republisher of press releases. A press release is a press release, regardless of who's reprinting it.
• The New York Times article about Autism Speaks is a much higher-quality source than press releases: its main story, about how controversies over the cause of autism have affected Autism Speaks, is highly relevant, and should not be shortchanged here because it is "negative".
• The third opinion is quite on point on press releases, a serious problem in the article's current state.

Eubulides (talk) 09:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed the new press-release material

• Thanks for the third opinion. I have removed some of the press-release material that was added in the past couple of days, keeping the sources that were not press releases (except for one source from the CDC which was not about either Autism Speaks or its predecessor organizations; there must have been some confusion there about similarly-named organizations?).
• This is just part of the job; more later. Even if all the newly-added press-release material were removed, there would still too be much text that relies on press releases, but that's another topic and anyway the older text has fewer point-of-view problems so it's less urgent.

Eubulides (talk) 21:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, the above comment was in error. That edit also removed these non-press-release sources, which I missed. They were mixed in with press-release sources, and I overlooked them.

• "Autism Speaks seek to raise awareness". MSNBC. 2005-10-25. Retrieved 2008-11-15.
• "Autism Information Center". Center For Disease Control and Prevention National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. 2007-2-14. Retrieved 2008-11-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

• The first is an old announcement of Autism Speak's launch, made by NBC. It would be better to use a non-NBC source, as Wright was chairman of NBC Universal. Since we already have alternate sources, let's use them.
• The second is a terse and redundant citation for AGRE. It's not a biased reference, such as the other ones, but it's not that helpful either. I can live with it, I suppose.

Eubulides (talk) 09:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

RFC Independent opinions requested for entire debate over last week about Autism Speaks article, and conduct of users Eubulides and Ombudsman

Reason: Likely persistent bias by overusing non-neutral source; repeated refusal to accept reasonable and productive additions, revisions, and sources; failure to understand that press releases are being used in a very limited way; unwilling to accept alternative sources to overused, negative source that is focused on other issues (familial dispute within Wright family; contractual dispute between Wright family and movie producers Autism debate strains a family and its charity, article in general focused on negative, contentious, and unrelated aspects of Autism Speaks and only tangentially mentions the things that the user is citing it for...there are better sources...user makes no attempt not accepts any other sources. Ombudsman persistently adds non-neutral content.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:13, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

You're talking apples and oranges. Ombudsman (talk · contribs) has, in the words of the Arbitration Committee, a "long standing history of tendentious editing of medical articles, often citing sources of doubtful reliability." He is correspondingly on probation and is to be banned from any article concerning a medical subject which he disrupts by tendentious editing. So if that's a problem, don't waste your time; I'd suggest just leaving a note with diffs at the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard, because this is not exactly the first time he's abused this project.

Eubulides, on the other hand, is an excellent editor with a long history of solid and neutral contribution to medical articles. He's done good work in fixing bias and inaccuracies in autism-related articles. So it might be worth going the extra mile to reach some sort of understanding or consensus. No comment on the underlying issue here, which I haven't reviewed at this point, but just a meta-2-cents. MastCell ^Talk 04:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

On his talk page, I see this quote about Eubulides from Ombudsman [2]: "Eubulides is hereby awarded the Tireless Contributor Barnstar in appreciation for excellent ongoing work to assure that issues related to autism are more completely referenced and well presented within the Wikipedia. Keep up the good work! --Ombudsman (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)"--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Two of the recent textual additions by Eubulides [3] to the Cure Autism Now section of the Autism Speaks article were, in my view, tendentious etc. I think he left them removed after I removed them, but I mention it to indicate the users tendency toward bias, in my view. The core of the users bias is, I believe, the extreme use (8 times, then down to 5 after my comments, now 2 I believe after my edits today, but likely to be raised to 5+ again) of the above mentioned New York Times article, etc, as I discussed above. I think it's clear to me there is bias, and it's widespread, and quite cunning and underhanded in my view. That is, the text of the Autism Speaks article is largely ok/neutral, and the source does have mention, albeit extremely tangential, of what is being cited, but, (1) the source if FOCUSED on highly contentious, unrelated negatives that the editor, I believe, desperately needs to be in the article, and not only in the article, but spread throughout the article in a multitude of sections, and (2) the source isn't FOCUSED in ANY WAY on what it is being cited for, namely the very simple aspects of the article. So yes it appears the user's text is ok for the most part, and the sources would pass as ok, but the sources, in my view, are being strategically selected to expose the reader to OTHER content that the user desperately needs the reader to see. Please see my first comments in this section about the sources, etc, and what I believe should be done. And, I think an overhaul of the sources should be done, and weighed according to OVERALL RELEVANCY, AND CONTENT, AND RELATION TO WHAT IS BEING CITED.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I also think the 3rd party request was deceptively done. I thought what was needed was a 3rd party assessment of EVERYTHING, not just the press release issue. Also, see my comments under the press release issue above [4]--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Also about Eubulides, he mentions [5] he removed the press releases, but actually he also removed many news articles (not press releases).--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

• The user Eublides, shortly after I started this RFC section, altered [6] my title, and underhandedly altered the dispute template to include HIS OWN CONCERN (again about press releases), and not the concerns for which I started this dispute. At the top, I listed in detail my reasons for starting this RFC. This RFC has nothing to do with press releases. Appears a continuation of this users underhanded conduct...see my comments above in this section for more detail.
• Please ask this user to not alter my comments in this Talk section, and to not change any of the formalities in my RFC, and do so underhandedly. Please also ask this user to not comment on my Talk page--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

• Please see followup comments in the section #Press-release POV below. Eubulides (talk) 09:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Press-release POV

To address the comments of ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (OIAD) one by one:

• The article's current state is using press releases not "in a very limited way". On the contrary, two of the three sources for the lead are press releases (the third source is an old TV interview of Bob Wright, also a relatively low-quality source). And most of the sources introduced by OIAD in recent edits are press releases.
• As mentioned above, the New York Times article about Autism Speaks is a much higher-quality source than press releases or old interviews, and should be preferred over the other sources in the article when it covers the same topic.
• I very much appreciate that barnstar from Ombudsman. I disagree with Ombudsman about many things on the subject of autism, but I do share his desire to present autism-related issues well, with accurate citations.
• Ombudsman's most recent edit to Autism Speaks contained some POV text, which I was happy to see was removed within minutes by OIAD.
• Again, OIAD objects to the #Coukell-sourced info about CAN. But this text is well-sourced, relevant, and highly useful in providing motivation for the foundation of Cure Autism Now and its most-successful project. It's unreasonable to object that it is "negative" and "tendentious". It's not even negative, for starters.
• There is no desire on my part to make Autism Speaks look negative. My desire is to use the best sources, as per Wikipedia policy (see WP:RS and WP:V). Please assume good faith.
• The 3rd party request was not deceptive: its subject was POV and press releases, as its title said. There are other problems with this article, but it's better to attack it one problem at a time.
• OIAD is correct that my edit removed some sources that were not press releases. I mentioned one of those sources in #Removed the new press-release material above, but neglected to mention the others. Sorry about that. I have updated #Removed the new press-release material accordingly.
• I altered the title "WP:RFC Independent opinions requested for entire debate over last week about Autism Speaks article, and conduct of users Eubulides and Ombudsman" because it's too long: among other things, it means that the log for the talk page cannot contain reasonable log messages for that section, as the section title gobbles up all the room. I defer to OIAD's request to use the overly-long title; it's not that big a deal.
• When I saw the dispute template it merely said {{RFC error}}, and my edit to fix that was not "underhanded"; my summary ("Disagreement over whether text is neutral, and over use of press releases") was my best attempt to summarize the dispute briefly and neutrally. In contrast, the summary OIAD substituted ("Disagreement over whether text is neutral and users persistent overuse of 1 non-neutral source, and unwillingless to accept different and more neutral sources including news articles, TV interviews, and press releases, and tendentious comments, etc") is neither neutral nor brief.
• My only comment on OIAD's talk page consisted of a polite notice asking OIAD to comment here.[7] I am at a loss as to why that comment would elicit a request not to comment further, but I will respect that request.

Eubulides (talk) 09:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Please see #Press-release POV followup below for more. Eubulides (talk) 08:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:DE Disruptive Editing complaint against Eubulides

• Proceeding with a Disruptive Editing complaint against Eubulides.
• I'm inquiring into how and where to proceed with this complaint. Note, in the RFC complaint, no other users became substantially involved in the issues I raised, and it was this user himself who inappropriately made decisions and judgments on how to resolve the complaint against himself.
• It's clear to me that this user is impeding the progress toward improving this article.
• The user appears to think he owns this article, or has a superior status with regard to the content of the article, both of which he/she doesn't, and it's time for other users to become involved. I believe this user is being disruptive and in some instances is engaging in WP:TE in a rather underhanded manner. His attempt to subvert my RFC is one example, as is his persistent disruptive editing, and poor responses to the issues I've raised.
• While my contributions [[8]] to this article were not 100% free of problems, I believe it did add substantially to the progress of improving the article in many ways, especially the Cure Autism Now section and Mergers discussion. I had still hoped to add some of the sources in the Cure Autism Now section, and other sources, to the first few paragraphs of this article, to either supplement or replace the Business Wire article.
• One example among many. I cited several PBS webpages, which were sub-sections of the PBS autism documentary. The documentary has dozens of articles and sub-sections to it, and each can be linked separately. I linked specific ones to specific content in this Autism Speaks article.
• Another example is the users obsessive need to cite the #1 source "Autism debate strains a family and its charity", to clearly expose the reader right away from the start, and 5 times through the article, to a negative New York Times article about unrelated controversies about Autism Speaks. I provided many better sources (but last I edited, they were in the Cure Autism Now and Mergers sections...I was still working on the first paragraph of the article), and the user is defiant against most of them, and providing poor explanations. The user has improved slightly, from his initially extreme obsessiveness and bias in citing the article 8 times originally, to now 5, but perhaps one could consider his current level of use to still be rather extreme. But at least some progress. The user appears disinterested in having the article progress from where he left it before I began to contribute. Again the user appears to have an unwarranted arrogance regarding this article and it's content. I do know that some of my editing is in need of change...I don't believe 100% of what I've done is best...but we now have an article whose first sentence has poor grammar, and on and on...carelessness in many places...combination of positives and negatives in the same sentence...it reads like it's from a harsh critic who can't stand to say anything positive without immediately citing a negative source or making a negative comment.
• I find the users responses to the issues I've raised to usually be vague, showing a failure to address the issues I raised, and in a style that shows the user feels he doesn't have to fully acknowledge the issues I've raised and in it's place can provide 1/2 to 2 sentence responses in a judge-like style with often inadequate explanation.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Article talk pages are not the right place to pursue complaints against users. The right place is WP:RFC/USER. I suggest reading the general instructions on RfCs for users before filing a complaint. Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime, starting with the article's first paragraph

• "Autism Speaks is a an autism advocacy organization that aims to promote autism research, improve public awareness about autism, and improve the lives of autistic individuals and their families. It was founded in February 2005 by Bob Wright, vice chairman of General Electric, and by his wife Suzanne, a year after their grandson Christian was diagnosed with autism."
• The source, I believe, doesn't provide any support for the content of the first sentence of the paragraph. What support it may provide is extremely indirect and requires too much interpretation. A new source is needed for the first sentence. I think the activities section should be at the top, or linked to in the first sentence. Or, I'll search PBS and other websites for an alternative and more neutral and FOCUSED source for the first sentence of this article. The NYT article only supports the second sentence of this paragraph. I think users should expend time, thought, and effort into finding FOCUSED sources, and exclude sources that include 95%+ content on totally unrelated and, sadly, negative content; these users should be aware they are misusing wikipedia for their own purposes and needs, and this is a violation of a core part of the freedom of wikipedia - please be responsible for your public conduct on wikipedia and please don't act to serve your own purposes here. In the meantime, please leave the in the first sentence.
• And again as I mentioned above, the grammar is poor in the first sentence, and I'm not sure why or who carelessly did this.
• I also noticed the use of the #1 source to do a kind of book-report-plagiarized-format wikipedia article, in many places, such as the celebrity place, the mergers area, and other areas. Fine if there is something distinct in a news article to paraphrase or quote in a wikipedia article, but to use a news article for the content of many areas of the wikipedia article (and with 5 citations, down from the original 8 citations originally), this is unacceptable. Again, FOCUSED sources are best and most neutral, that is, a source that is specifically devoted to wikipedia article statement being sourced.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that the first sentence needs work. Not only does it need a source, it needs to match that source. The source should be a 3rd-party source rather than a press release, ideally one in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable newspaper. Here is a suggested rewrite of the first sentence:

Autism Speaks is an autism advocacy organization that sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activities aimed at families, governments, and the public.

This would cite the following source:

Singh J, Hallmayer J, Illes J (2007). "Interacting and paradoxical forces in neuroscience and society". Nat Rev Neurosci. 8 (2): 153–60. doi:10.1038/nrn2073. PMC 1885680. PMID 17237806.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Similar text would be added to Autism Speaks #Activities, just before the quote from Autism Speak's press release. It's nice to have a 3rd-party summary of Autism Speaks before we launch into Autism Speaks's own description of itself, which naturally will have some bias.

• I fixed the grammar problem. Thanks for pointing it out.
• According to Wikipedia guidelines, it's more important that sources be reliable than that they be focused on a single topic. Focus is nice too, of course, but it doesn't trump reliability.

Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

No further comment, so I installed the change described above. Eubulides (talk) 09:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Press-release POV followup

No followup comments were made to #Press-release POV so I have attempted with this edit to fix the following problems:

• The lead was too long and complains press-release quotes like "accelerate and fund biomedical research" (without quotation marks!). It also directly quoted the New York Times but cited the wrong source for the quote. The edit rewrote the lead to make it shorter and more relevant and to remove the press-release material.

• The edit moved the main press-release quote to Autism Speaks #Activities, mentioning that it is a press release, and using quote marks for the quote.

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7030781/ was cited to support a claim abut NAAR history, but the source didn't support that claim.

• Press releases were cited from Business Wire (a press-release republisher) when it's better to cite the original press release from Autism Speaks.

• There were multiple citations to different parts of the same PBS show. One citation to the show should suffice.

• Material about the AGRE was duplicated, once under Autism Speaks #Research and once in the Cure Autism Now section. The edit removed the duplicate discussion under CAN, which had duplicative and lower-quality sources.

• The edit removed material from Autism Speaks #Autism Coalition for Research and Education that was not supported by the cited source (a Bob Wright interview on CNN).

• The phrase "no major scientific studies have confirmed this hypothesis" (about vaccines causing autism) was removed, I think inadvertently, as a result of its being mutated this edit into something that was POV, and then removed by this edit. The phrase is supported by the source, so the edit restored it.

• The edit contains other changes involving improving source formatting, omitting references that are redundant or very low quality, and so forth.

• Even after the edit is applied, there are still too many sources that are press-releases, or self-published web sites, or articles in magazines that are thinly disguised press releases, but I don't have time right now to address all these issues. Further improvements are welcome. But please let's avoid press releases whenever possible.

• I expect that this change will still result in some POV issues so I left the POV tag in for now.

Eubulides (talk) 08:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

No further comment, so I removed the POV tag. Eubulides (talk) 19:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Autism Rights Movement criticism not represented

I don't believe Autism Speaks has the support of too many autism activists. There are infact many who are united in ideologies like neurodiversity partly because they oppose them.
Things that these activists object to are among other things:
- The focus on children and parents in their awareness campaigns.
- What they believe is pity propaganda.
- The cancer-autism anology made by Bob Wright.
- What Autism Speaks' choose to fund, including large paychecks for representatives of the charity. Many people feel that research into things like autism's genetic manifestation does not represent the interests of those living with autism.

People from all groups in the autism community criticize the organizations, here are some examples:
Some people diagnosed with Asperger syndrome
Ari Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Alexander Plank running the WrongPlanet.net forum
Gareth and Amy Nelson running the AspiesForFreedom.com forum
Zachary Lassiter of AspieWeb.net
Kent Adams aka Christschool or just CS, he is also a father of a classically autistic son and the blogger of autisticnation.typepad.com
Some parents of autistic children
Kevin Leitch - father of a classically autistic daughter, the web developer behind the Autism Hub blogging community aswell as the multi-authored blog Left Brain/Right Brain.
Kristina Chew - mother of a classically autistic son and the blogger of Autism Vox
Some people diagnosed as classically autistic
Amanda Baggs - A non-verbal autistic using typed communication.
Jim Sinclair - co-founder of the Autism Network International and the writer of the infamous essay Don't Mourn For Us.

These are just some of the few most vocal critics of Autism Speaks, the popular blogging community Autism Hub has a petition on their website called the Don't Speak For Me petition with additional signatures. Though, it is reason to believe that the petition has lost attention as it was impossible to sign it for almost a year at some point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.166.136.201 (talk) 17:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

These are all valid points, but for Wikipedia we need a reliable 3rd-party source that talks about it (i.e., the source should not be Autism Speaks, nor should it be the "Don't Speak for Me" website). Ideally it would be a New York Times article or something like that, but other reliable sources would do. Can you find one, and suggest some wording to summarize it? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 19:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I will attempt to make a draft with as reliable sources as I can gather. I am no good at editing but I feel this is important.85.166.136.201 (talk) 22:12, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I have made the draft available here:

http://www.etaglive.com/eTags/Criticism_from_the_Autism_Rights_Movement_LoC11869.htm

Sorry, but when I save notes on eTag apostrophes are doubled - just take notice of it. Hopefully it may contribute to the article.85.166.136.201 (talk) 16:26, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I will not sue anyone for using the text, editing it or whatever, in the wikipedia article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.166.136.201 (talk) 17:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I am going to move your essay into the Talk page here so that I can format it properly and therefore make it easier to integrate into the article. Before actually putting it there, though, I think we should get a consensus from involved editors that anti-Autism Speaks material is OK to put on the main page, because from what I can see we are still involved in a pre-existing content dispute over much the same thing. Also, other people might want to edit the text before it goes anywhere. So here it is:

Criticism from the Autism Rights Movement

Autistic self-advocacy groups as well as some autism parent activists criticize Autism Speaks for focusing its efforts into developing a cure and prevention for autism. Additional concerns are the focus on parents and children and negativity toward living with autism in its charity campaigns.

Autism Network Inernational (ANI), a self-advocacy group established in 1992, was one of the first to object to the notion that a cure was in the best interests of autistic people. The anti-cure essay Don't Mourn For Us presented by ANI co-founder Jim Sinclair during an autism conference in 1993 gained a lot of attention in the autism community. The group Aspies For Freedom established in 2004 encouraged several protests against charities directed toward developing a cure and prevention of autism.

Kevin Leitch, a British web developer and parent of a classically autistic daughter, launched a petition on the popular blogging portal Autism Hub in 2006 called Don't Speak For Me, protesting against the film Autism Every Day presented by Autism Speaks. The petition argues that the film depicts living with autism as overly negative, and finds a segment of the film where a mother of an autistic daughter says that she had contemplated driving off the George Washington Bridge with her daughter inappropriate.

Amanda Baggs, a non-speaking autistic woman who uses typed communication, argues that not only individuals less disabled by autism dislike the idea of a cure.

The ref tags will appear properly once the content is pasted on to the main page. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 18:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Very much appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.166.136.201 (talk) 20:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments on draft criticism section

Unfortunately this draft has serious problems. The Harmon and Saner sources have nothing to do with Autism Speaks. The Autism Hub and Youtube sources are not reliable. The first paragraph of the text is entirely unsourced. Please find reliable sources first, and then write the text to match what the reliable sources say. As per WP:RS and WP:MEDRS the best sources are peer-reviewed journals, and high-quality newspapers being good as well. Eubulides (talk) 21:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I have little experience with editing wikipedia articles. There are probably hundreds of well-worded posts on blogs and forums where the ways of Autism Speaks are criticized, though few news articles on these views directly mentions Autism Speaks. I am not sure how if ever one could get the kind of sources you are asking for.85.166.136.201 (talk) 22:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I would like to help get at least some sort of information relating to the anti-cure position into this article. There are many people, perhaps a majority of those reading this article, who don't know that an anti-cure movement even exists, and I have to wonder what conclusion they would come to upon reading the article as it is now, such that it mentions a parody of the Autism Speaks website but doesn't explain what the motivation behind that parody was. As I think I said before, my guess is that a lot of them would picture some kid having some innocent fun, and totally miss the political statement that she intended to make. I'm not saying we should put rebuttals into every single cure-related article, but just that when a controversy does exist, we should make every effort to explain it so that even an erstwhile uninformed reader will understand what is going on. If no suitable 3rd party sources to explain in detail the opposition to Autism Speaks can be found, I would like to find a way to simply add a link to autism rights movement after the sentence about the Autism Speaks parody site. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 00:57, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I changed the last sentence just now to help explain the situation better while still holding strictly to the information given in the New Scientist article. There seems to be an effort to hide the gender of the person involved here, and I can understand that, but it is really clumsy to write a description without using the word her, so I have left that in for now. (I think that it affords her greater anonymity than using her screen name, which is what the New Scientist article does ... because anyone can just google that name and find her profile on the Aspies for Freedom website.) Granted, using "her" hints at the fact that there's more to this story than what's been said in the open, but linking to the NS article would allow anyone to find out the whole story from beginning to end, and so just by linking to it we've already destroyed all of her anonymity. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 03:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The New Scientist article does not give the blogger's sex, so we shouldn't either (as we have no reliable source on the blogger's sex). I'll fix that. Eubulides (talk) 07:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

FYI, abscout is transsexual, originally male. Though young she has had gender therapy. Not that it should go into the article.85.166.136.201 (talk) 10:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that wording looks better than I had had it and avoids the he/she problem. However, I still want to provide further explanation of the controversy and so I've added a sentence at the end which links to Aspies for Freedom and describes it as an anti-cure organization. I think that linking to Aspies for Freedom, which links in turn to autism rights movement, is probably the best way to express the information in the gray box on this talk page to readers of the main page. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 15:19, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Possible references

This is 85.166.136.201 from another computer

As there appears to be problems getting good sources for Autism Rights Movement's criticism of Autism Speaks I've gone on a news article hunt. None of these articles directly mentions Autism Speaks, however, they do display critical views on moves to aggressively search for a cure. I have quoted the parts of the articles that I believe should make them relevant.

A very good example of an indirect mention of Autism Speaks is seen in the first example:

Autistic Liberation Front fights the 'oppressors searching for a cure' - Telegraph

Their badges declare, "I am not a puzzle, I am a person" and, "Here we're silenced. Parents don't speak for me."

Supporters argue that scientists' efforts to cure autism, a developmental brain disorder that typically appears during childhood and affects the areas controlling language, social interaction and abstract thought, are like attempts by previous generations to cure homosexuality or left-handedness, and are doomed to failure.

In exploring role, Sigourney Weaver finds her inner autism | The San Diego Union-Tribune

Advocating for acceptance of those who are different might not seem particularly controversial, but “it's quite a minefield, actually,” says Pell. And some of those mines are inscribed with the word “cure.”

Those in what's loosely known as the neurodiversity movement say talk of a cure is insulting and demeaning because it suggests autistic people are broken or damaged or otherwise need to be “fixed.” They also argue that autism is an inextricable part of who the person is and cannot be removed like a bad tooth.

(The movement has a strong Web presence at such sites as Neurodiversity.com, Left Brain/Right Brain, Autism Diva and The Autism Acceptance Project, www.taaproject.com.)

ABC News: Controversial New Movement: Autistic and Proud

Ari Ne'eman and Kristina Chew say they are the faces and voices of autism's future.

They're part of a controversial group hoping to radically change the way others look at autism. Their message: Stop the search for a cure and begin celebrating autistic people for their differences. It's a message that has some parents of autistic children bewildered and angry. Ne'eman, 20, is the founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a non-profit group aimed at advancing autism culture and advocating for "neurodiverse" individuals.

Is autism simply in the wiring? | Anjana Ahuja: Science Notebook - Times Online

Some people argue that the developmental disorder — which compromises communication, social interaction and imaginative play — is merely an example of human “neurodiversity”. Just as disabled individuals sometimes prefer to call themselves differently abled, some people with autism would like to be regarded as differently wired. To try to alleviate or cure autism, they say, is tantamount to oppression. And genetic tests, which are in development to identify autism in the unborn, are a mere step away from eugenics.

The New York Times > Health > How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading

The new program, whose name stands for Autistic Strength, Purpose and Independence in Education - and whose acronym is a short form of Asperger's - is rooted in a view of autism as an alternative form of brain wiring, with its own benefits and drawbacks, rather than a devastating disorder in need of curing.

It is a view supported by an increasingly vocal group of adult autistics, including some who cannot use speech to communicate and have been institutionalized because of their condition. But it is causing consternation among many parents whose greatest hope is to avoid that very future for their children. Many believe that intensive behavioral therapy offers the only rescue from the task of caring for unpredictable, sometimes aggressive children, whose condition can take a toll on the entire family.

'It is not a disease, it is a way of life' | Society | The Guardian

Nelson, with his wife Amy, who also has AS, is leading the UK's autism rights movement. They run their group, Aspies for Freedom (AFF), from their home; it started as a website three years ago and now has 20,000 members, most of them autistic. AFF came about partly to campaign against the search for a cure. It holds protests - its members turning up with banners - at fundraising events for autism charities.

NPR: Open Thread: The Autism Rights Movement

On today's show, we heard from the president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. Ari Ne'eman, 20, has Asperger's, sometimes described as a milder former of autism. Ne'eman argues that people with so-called spectrum disorders have a right to exist as they are. Activists for neurodiversity say society needs to worry less about "fixing" people with diagnoses and concentrate more on making a place for them in society. "We are proud of who we are," he says. "We're proud of the community we are building."

152.93.67.142 (talk) 14:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

At first glance these all appear to be reasonable sources, but (as you say) they're not about Autism Speaks. They might be appropriate for Neurodiversity, or for Autism rights movement, etc. What we need for this article is a reliable source that mentions Autism Speaks with respect to the neurodiversity movement. Eubulides (talk) 16:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Now I am puzzled about how wikipedia works. I would expect one article about a big subject to enter a few other relevant subjects aswell - such as in this case, cure and prevention of autism. To support what is written about these subjects I believe you sometimes would to source references that may or may not have anything to do with the subject of the main article. Or am I completely wrong here? 85.166.136.201 (talk) 17:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but this is an article about Autism Speaks, not about autism in general. We need evidence that mainstream sources consider the anti-cure position to be notable and relevant to Autism Speaks, important enough to justify devoting a section about it to the article. See WP:COATRACK for why we can't simply add the possible references listed above to Autism Speaks on our own. Eubulides (talk) 18:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Though I probably wont spend much time arguing, I would like to point out that Autism Speaks is the influencial voice promoting a cure and prevention of autism, and articles about the neurodiversity movement in mainstream newspapers tend to be focused on what many people believe is a much-needed positive light to autism - not a conflict between an autism charity and self-advocacy groups, even though this is a very-much-important topic for the autism community. 85.166.136.201 (talk) 19:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

After having looked briefly at news articles in this area, I agree that coverage of neurodiversity tends to focus on positive aspects of self-advocacy groups, rather than on conflicts between them and Autism Speaks. Similarly, mainstream coverage of Autism Speaks focuses on its activities, and rarely mentions criticisms from self-advocacy groups. As per WP:WEIGHT, we should do likewise. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't mention the issue at all: it merely means we should cover it only briefly. I searched for a reliable source that mentions Autism Speaks in the context of the neurodiversity movement, found one that does so briefly (Baron-Cohen 2008, doi:10.1038/454695a), and added it to Autism Speaks #Disputes. Hope this helps. Eubulides (talk) 19:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

That is most certainly appreciated. Many thanks to Eubulides for guidance and open-mindedness. 85.166.136.201 (talk) 20:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, a big part of the issue that the autism rights people have with autism speaks is that some of its goals are directly opposed to theirs. Therefore, couldn't one cite these contrasts(based on the sources that have already been brought up and Autism Speaks statements) without them having to directly reference Autism Speaks? 76.105.4.66 (talk) 04:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

That would depend on the sources, what they say, and how they're characterized here. Any such discussion would have to be quite short; the article already has some of it (the Baron-Cohen remark, and the stuff about Aspies for Freedom) and it's not clear that it could stand more. Please keep in mind that Autism Speaks is not supposed to be a WP:COATRACK for dragging in a topic that is relatively minor from the point of view of reliable sources that discuss Autism Speaks. These reliable sources don't spend a lot of time on this particular subtopic, so WP:WEIGHT says that this article shouldn't either. That doesn't mean we can't further improve the article in this area; obviously we can. But the improvements have to be keept within WP:WEIGHT constraints. Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Re "I searched for a reliable source that mentions Autism Speaks in the context of the neurodiversity movement, found one that does so briefly (Baron-Cohen 2008, doi:10.1038/454695a), and added it to Autism Speaks #Disputes. Hope this helps."
• The source is very much not reliable...see my comments in my removal of it...it's a book review, and the content of the review, especially in the last paragraph is very non-neutral, both the tone of the review, the one-sidedness, and the citing of a YouTube video as important for these issues. It's a negativistic book review that is essentially like a commentary section of a newspaper where a writer gets to express his personal feelings about something. You do a poor job with finding sources, respectfully.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Please see #Baron-Cohen review below. Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

While I probably can't determine whether the source is reliable, I really don't understand your objection to put anything 'negativistic' into the article. Are you saying that Autism Speaks should be under no scrutiny in this article? 85.166.136.201 (talk) 07:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I will shortly be asking several other established wikipedia administrators about the standard nature of wikipedia articles. It's clear to me that many people use wikipedia to write their anti____ criticisms in articles about certain people, organizations, etc. I tend to think this is un-encyclopedic. The anti-____ persons, or persons with criticisms, have their own articles (ie Autism Rights Movement), and this is very well represented and linked in the Template in the Controversies section at the bottom of this article on Autism Speaks, along with other wiki articles. This should be more than enough. I think the entire Criticisms section of this article should be removed, and in it's place, the Template, and perhaps some links in the External links section that represent the concerns of those with criticisms. I also think most of these sub-sections in the article are unnecessary, as they are covered in some neutral links on Autism Speaks. I think the article should be a brief paragraph, and have an extensive list of External Links for educational value on the organization. Otherwise, as we've seen, led by seemingly one user, the article becomes subjective in nature (what is written, which points covered, and especially the sources used).--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 18:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Feel free to ask administrators about this, but I'm afraid that the previous comment reflects a few misconceptions about Wikipedia. Wikipedia policy discourages the formation of POV forks that would put the "positive" stuff in Autism Speaks and the "negative" stuff in Autism rights movement. Policy also discourages segregation of critical text into subsections of the article. Finally, Wikipedia guidelines frown on extensive lists of external links; see WP:LINKS. Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I found a site(notautismspeaks.tk) that appears to address a lot of the sourcing requirements. It's somewhat POV, but it also does have some very well-supported/well-researched information, especcially in the "finances" section. IMO, this is kind of a problem--issues with use of money are commonly cited, but there's not a lot of reporting on them--so we're stuck between

1.Not mentioning them at all

2.Violating WP:NPOV by using sources like Not Autism Speaks

3.Violating WP:OR by using the Autism SPeaks form 990 documents

76.105.4.66 (talk) 16:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

?

I reverted this edit for violating WP:NOTE and WP:NPOV. It seems the only difference now between that controversy and the one that's still in the article is that the one in the article was reported by the New Scientist. Is that a valid criterion for keeping it in the article? Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 02:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted your changes as they violate NPOV, your attempting to not display all sides of the issue in equal proporitons. I suspect there are several biased editors messing with this article and think admin oversight is necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.54.136.83 (talk) 03:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Autism is a touchy subject and it's hard to stay long before running afoul of somebody. This is one reason why until recently I haven't dared to take any role on autism-related articles beyond reverting of obvious vandalism. Like every editor, I am biased in my mind towards points of view that I agree with, and like nearly every editor, I don't consciously let my inbuilt biases affect my editing; but it's possible that I've made a mistake. I will take a break from editing this article and other autism-related articles for the time being now, except, as said before, to revert obvious vandalism, and leave the more edgy work to people with a better understanding of Wikipedia policies. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 05:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Soap is right on this point. WP:RS says that Wikipedia should rely on reliable sources such as New Scientist, and not on self-published sources such as the blog entry in question. It certainly wouldn't hurt to add more coverage of criticsm of Autism Speaks here, but it needs to be sourced by reliable sources such as New Scientist and the New York Times (both of which are currently used). Eubulides (talk) 06:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Unsigned blog entry that repeated hearsay

Added more relevenat source material —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.54.136.83 (talk) 07:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that this edit, which inserted some unsourced material, and some material that was sourced only by an unsigned blog entry that is repeating hearsay, doesn't come even close to satisfying the requirements of WP:RS for reliable sources. Please cite a reliable 3rd party source, such as a mainstream newspaper; otherwise, this particular dispute appears to be neither notable nor reliable. Eubulides (talk) 08:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I have found a followup blog entry post, also unsigned, that retracts the T-shirt story. This retraction is not a reliable source either, but the point is that the entire story appears to be wrong, and should not be in Wikipedia. Eubulides (talk) 08:11, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I see that an IP address added the story again, without commenting here. For now, rather than indulge in a revert war, I've fact-tagged this extremely dubious story. I suggest removing the paragraph about Zachary Lassiter and the corresponding {{POV-section}} tag. Eubulides (talk) 20:31, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the disputed material pending a reliable source being found. I am also going to leave a note for the IP regarding adding such material. The IP was blocked for edit warring, and our sourcing guidelines and verifiability policy have been explained to them. If they revert again without discussion, contact myself or User:MastCell. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 22:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I edited the title of this subsection as it is not heresay 99.190.89.162 (talk) 07:36, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Sure it's hearsay. It repeats what is purported to be a conversation with someone helping to run a website, who in turn is relating a purported message from Autism Speaks. That's classic hearsay. I changed the title back; let's leave titles in talk pages alone, unless there's a very good reason to fix them (which there is not in this case). Eubulides (talk) 08:10, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Time to semi-protect?

Given that there have been attempts to recruit editors of specific viewpoints to this page, and given that all of the recent IP edits have been strongly POV and are resulting in lowering the quality of the page, perhaps it's time to semi-protect it? The latest edit, this time by 96.237.252.121 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), adds an unsourced claim that Autism Speaks is part of a process that could cause large scale abortions, which really is beyond the pale; but I'm getting close enough to the WP:3RR limit that I'm hesitant to revert it. Eubulides (talk) 00:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Having kept an eye on this article, I agree that temporary semiprotection is in order, and have applied it. MastCell ^Talk 00:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Autism Speaks hasn't ruled out the possibility of solving the world's energy problems by putting autistic children into incinerators... and they should not have to. I've reverted the above edit as an insufficiently subtle attack on the group. It was also unsourced. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Baron-Cohen review

This edit removed the following text:

"Autism Speaks's advocacy has been based on the view that autism is a disease, a view shared by many but not all autism scientists. In contrast, some autism activists have asserted that people with autism are different but not diseased, challenging the conceptualization of autism as a medical condition."

The comment for the edit said:

• "No source for 1st sentence"

• Both sentences summarize the same source, namely Baron-Cohen 2008 (doi:10.1038/454695a). It is common in Wikipedia to have multiple sentences that cite the same source, and to include the citation only after the last sentence.

• "source for 2nd sentence is a book-review&one that is not neutral (especially last paragraph)"

• No, that review, including its last paragraph, is written from a relatively neutral viewpoint.

• "news source needed"

• There is no requirement that the source be a newspaper. The important thing is that it be reliable. That source's author is Simon Baron-Cohen, one of the world's leading scientific experts in autism. The source was recently published in Nature, one of the top two scientific journals in the world. It is true that the source is a book review and was not peer-reviewed; but nevertheless the source is far more reliable than the vast majority of the sources that Autism Speaks currently cites.

• "anyway, all negative&irrelevant content"

• The content is clearly not irrelevant: Baron-Cohen himself raised the connection.

It should be mentioned that this text was not prompted by me: it was prompted by the discussion at the start of #Autism Rights Movement criticism not represented, a discussion that raised some valid points. So far, the Baron-Cohen review is the best we've found in the area: it is reliable and worth citing. Better (particularly, peer-reviewed) sources would of course be welcome, but in the meantime the Baron-Cohen source should not be excluded merely because it disagrees with our preconceptions about Autism Speaks. For now, I have restored the text in question, but this time improving the citation a bit by wikilinking to Simon Baron-Cohen. Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I must say that I find it contradictory that something is said to be both negative and irrelevant regarding Autism Speaks at the same time. 85.166.136.201 (talk) 20:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

While it's a good source, I'm concerned that the opinions in the text are not attributed to their author. For more on this, see WP:ASF. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:42, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Above is written: "source for 2nd sentence is a book-review&one that is not neutral (especially last paragraph)"

Even if that were true, it wouldn't exclude it as a source, in fact that's what makes articles interesting. We choose sources that reveal the various published POV on subjects. NPOV requires that. They are often far from neutral, are controversial, etc. It is our writing as editors that must be NPOV, not the sources. We must not choose sides by the way we word things. We must represent the sources accurately and present both or all sides of the story. -- Fyslee / talk 05:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

This question came up again recently, so I thought I'd quote directly from the source here:

'Slanted views about autism can even be found in the research community. On the website of Autism Speaks, the major charity funding autism research in the United States, are the words "This disease has taken our children away. It's time to get them back." This is as clear a statement as one can find of autism as a disease, a view that many but not all autism scientists would endorse. Contrast this with Amanda Baggs's online video In My Language, which she launched as a statement about her civil rights as a person with autism, to be recognized and understood as different but not diseased.' —Baron-Cohen S (2008). "Living Googles?". Nature. 454 (7205): 695–6. doi:10.1038/454695a.

I hope this helps to explain the current wording of the first paragraph of Autism Speaks #Portrayal of autism. Eubulides (talk) 18:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Praise section

Since this article, and many other similar wikipedia articles, tend to have the format of including a criticism section, I'll add an opposing section for praise about Autism Speaks (the organization, their concept of autism as a medical disease, etc). I currently have an abundance of press articles, which include distinguished scientist and doctor interviews and statements about Autism Speaks, and, about Autism Speaks' concept of autism, goals, etc, but will take time to research more and hope to develop this in the next week or so.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 22:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned in #Possible references above, Wikipedia policy discourages segregation of text into subsections based on point of view. So there shouldn't be a Criticism section, much less a Praise section as well. A better improvement would be to move the material currently in Autism Speaks #Criticism to relevant other sections, possibly creating some sections, and to remove the Criticism section entirely. Commentary praising Autism Speaks should be treated similarly, of course. Eubulides (talk) 01:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Three weeks ago in this Talk page, over about a week, I advocated for the removal of the Criticism section, and provided many paragraphs of discussion for why.
• Not sure what is meant by "to relevant other sections, possibly creating some sections" "and to remove the Criticism section entirely". What other sections? In this article? How would this be any different than the current section. Your use of "sections" and "other sections" is vague...please make an effort to reduce jargon or an eccentric use of terms and please try to be clearer so other readers can acquire a simple understanding of what you mean.
• Any judgment about the current Criticisms section would seem to apply to my proposed Praise section. So if you want to do a sub-section in this article with the Criticism section, then I'll do a Praise section in a similar way. Or if you want to remove the Criticism section entirely from the article, I won't proceed in developing a Praise section.
• Where you referring to moving the Criticism section to another article?
• User wrote: "As mentioned in #Possible references above, Wikipedia policy discourages segregation of text into subsections based on point of view." So why was this allowed to occur, and why did you add to the Criticism section yesterday with a new, contentious, and rather obscurely sourced (book review, isolated webpage, strangely formatted on the Nature website, not a news article, very one-sided, from a preferenced scientist rather than an objective news source that aims to be balanced in coverage, etc, etc)?
• I believe the Template at the bottom of the article provides links to wiki articles that cover the main criticisms (autism rights movement, neurodiversity) which by the way I find to be interesting perspectives, and worth being expressed.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:46, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Perhaps the difference is that I'm not objecting to the presence of critical material; just to segregating that material into a separate Criticisms section. It is the latter that WP:STRUCTURE discourages, not the former.
• I would rather remove the Criticisms section, yes. I'm not suggesting moving its material to a subarticle (there's not enough material for that), just to elsewhere within this article. I'm vague about which "other sections" because they don't necessarily exist yet; someone needs to do the work and write them, or at least organize them.
• The Criticisms section was allowed to occur because some editors (not me) created it. Not everybody knows Wikipedia guidelines well.
• The Baron-Cohen review is not an obscure source. It's published in Nature, one of the top two scientific journals on the planet. Its author is widely recognized as a top autism researcher. The source is far more authoritative than almost all of Autism Speaks's other sources. I'm not sure what is meant by "strangely formatted" or "preferenced scientist". The formatting of Baron-Cohen's review looks OK on my browser. I didn't choose the source because I prefer Baron-Cohen; I chose it because it's the most reliable source I could find on the topic.
• Insofar as the neurodiversity etc. movement is directly relevant to Autism Speaks, it should be covered in the text of this article.

Eubulides (talk) 05:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the section, which had no content yet. Such a section is inappropriate. Everything in the article that isn't critical is considered "praise", but mustn't appear to be so, IOW no fluff and peacock language. That would violate our NPOV style. Just include the facts about the organization. That's "praise" enough. -- Fyslee / talk 17:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• The facts about the organization are different in nature from praise. The facts are simply statements about basic, judgment-free aspects the organization, such as names, dates, goals (taken from what the organization states it's goals are, which are facts), etc. Praise, in contrast, would be positive judgments about the organization, such as, the commendation-judgments of experts (scientists, doctors, media, etc) about different aspects of the organization, such as the organizations stated goals, the organizations pursuit of those goals, the organizations concepts (such as the concept of autism as a disease), the organizations treatment initiatives, etc etc. Criticism, similarly, would be negative judgments about certain aspects of the organization. Since there is a Criticism section, I will proceed with an opposing Praise section (also, technically, please see in the dictionary that 'praise' and 'criticism' are antonyms of one another). I'll now place the Praise section back, and as I noted before, it is a work in progress, and since it's a part of the progress of this article, removing it would be WP:DE Disruption. I've been researching praise (that is, academic/intellectual support of Autism Speaks concept of autism as a disease, and other things as mentioned above. Also, I've found other support against the other criticisms being made. Also, I've found other praise that would be not related to anything discussed in the Criticism section.
• Praise/Criticism sections: I don't think either section would necessarily not be WP:NPOV (neutral point of view). Maybe so only insofar as certain users select what criticisms/praise they think is encyclopedic. I tend to think both sections should not appear anywhere in the article, and that all of the preferential narrative should be deleted, and that the article can be re-written to be a short 1 paragraph with some very boring, neutral facts.
• Which brings me to this...right hand column, at bottom by Fyslee which shows to me what I've been thinking from my start on wikipedia, which is that cunning wikipedia editors can get away with being in violation of NPOV by selecting POV (non neutral point of view) sources to support NPOV (neutral) language in the article. For example, what Eubulides does with the 5 citations to the "Autism debate strains a family and its charity" New York Times article. From the start of the article, and throughout. The NYT article is focused, as self-evident from it's title, very different issues than what it's used for in the Autism Speaks article. Yes the NYT article does very superficially mention as asides the things for which it's used in this Autism Speaks article. So this user gets away with it, and also gets away with exposing the reader to an abundance of other content the user needs to expose the reader to. This is the essence of POV and this user, in my view, is abusing wikipedia, sadly. And, the user has made no effort to find other articles that have content limited to, or more limited to, what they are specifically being used for in the Autism Speaks article. I'll continue checking for other sources and I intend to replace this #1 reference with sources that don't mention the Wright's familial dispute, not the other arguments, gossip, claims, etc. I had hoped a wikipedia user would work harder to not abuse wikipedia in this way. I also think it's better to have a "pending reference" status than non-NPOV references. The use of references has the same NPOV requirement, which both Fyslee and Eubulides don't seem to grasp. Please don't try to infiltrate your POV into wikipedia with the underhanded selection of non-NPOV sources.
• User Eubulides "Insofar as the neurodiversity etc. movement is directly relevant to Autism Speaks, it should be covered in the text of this article." In the template at the bottom of the article, it is there in the Controversy section, along with other articles in the Controversy section. This is adequate, in my view, and any additional mention of it in the article would be redundant.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:55, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you got the idea that sources must be NPOV. On the contrary, they will often be from one or another POV. It is our writing, as editors, that must be NPOV, not the sources or content of the article. You don't seem to understand our most fundamental policy here. Please read it at least once each day for a couple weeks. Even then, you will just become a member of the entire group of editors here. We are all continuing to learn what it is really all about. It's actually a pretty deep subject. -- Fyslee / talk 23:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• User wrote: "You don't seem to understand our most fundamental policy here. Please read it at least once each day for a couple weeks." Read what? Provide the wikipedia policy you're referring to. Should be a simple link. Strange that you did not. You also failed to understand my simple points. Again, and lets take a simple formal example: Say I want to introduce an organization X, and have a couple sentences I want to write in wikipedia about some benign, boring facts about the organization, such as the organizations simple goals, founders, dates, etc. And, I find a source that is 95+% negativistic, contentious, critical, preferential, biased, misleading, but yes from a reliable source, but also yes from a journalist at the reliable source that is known for being very biased and preferential. Why would I want to use such a source, and not search for other sources that are NPOV themselves, to stay true to the ideal of NPOV at Wikipedia? Why would this be? Perhaps because I want to underhandedly infiltrate the article with the POV of the source? Yes. And why would I select the source 8 times for the short 1 page article? It's clear. Why wouldn't I make any effort to look for other sources? It's clear. Why wouldn't I leave the citation areas in the article open as "citation needed" until such sources are found? It's clear. Why would I disrupt and ignore efforts to address this issue? It's clear. Why would I respond to efforts to do so with a strange paternalistic, arrogance about essentially having ownership of the article? It's clear. So that's my simple formal example. But yes I'll read "our most fundamental policy here" if you can provide it, and if you provide a long multi-page document where it is buried in dozens of pages, please provide the relevant quotes.
• Lets be ever more simple. In the first couple sentence of this article on Autism Speaks, a simple source(s) should be found that is neutral, and focused on what it's being used for. Any attempt to do otherwise is to underhandedly and deceptively and rather cunningly abuse Wikipedia for your own purpose. This seems to be the nature of NPOV. Effort should be made throughout all of Wikipedia to avoid your and others POV at all times. Impregnating articles with POV sources, especially ones that are rampantly, aggressively so, is disgusting.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 02:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

• The link should be apparent and therefore unnecessary to link. Are you that ignorant of our policies? Here it is: Neutral point of view
• You continually write "It's clear". If you are referring to some editor's motives, then you are engaging in very serious violations of another fundamental policy, and that is Assume good faith. Please be more careful and more civil. -- Fyslee / talk 08:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

• It seems that there's some agreement that there shouldn't be a separate Criticism or Praise sections, so I took the liberty of installing this change, which deletes the Criticism section header along with its tag, and moving the section's contents to various other sections where they seemed to belong. The only alteration I made to content (as opposed to section headers) was to reorder the content. One new section that I dubbed Neurodiversity was needed to capture the topic of Autism Speaks's relation to the neurodiversity movement. Obviously all this is just a first cut; more work is needed. But it's better to do it this way than to have Criticism and Praise sections.
• I know of no Wikipedia policy or guideline that prefers sources "that have content limited to" the claims they source. On the contrary, the Wikipedia guideline WP:RS simply says we should prefer reliable sources; it says nothing about whether these sources could also be used to support claims other than the claims being sourced here. If the choice is to use a New York Times article or some press release or self-published web page, there's not really much contest; we should prefer the New York Times.
• A one-word mention in a template doesn't suffice to address the notable issue of the relationship between Autism Speaks and the anti-cure movement. The coverage of the anti-cure movement should be brief, but not that brief.

Eubulides (talk) 09:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• The content provided under the new section Neurodiversity has nothing to do with neurodiversity. Simon's article isn't directly about neurodiversity; the blogger issue isn't directly about neurodiversity.
• If you were to provide a wiki link to neurodiversity and write that Autism Speaks receives criticism from them etc, this would be a POV violation I believe.
• Your choice of the section title is a POV violation I believe. Your two paragraphs don't support the use of the title.
• I wonder if what you're doing is a Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words issue. Or something similar. Or if not, then an issue of being misleading.
• A more neutral section title should be done. Such as "anti-cure movement".
• The use of 'autism activists' and 'autism rights group' in this section, and anywhere else, is contentious, there are autism activists and autism rights groups that are pro-cure and pro-autism-disorder.
• First sentence in section: "... is a view shared by many but not all autism scientists." In fact, the view is shared by most scientists (the vast majority) not "many". This should be made clear. Although I would have to find a reference. Yes Baron-Cohen states this, but it is contentious, and is it appropriate to merely write his opinon in the Autism Speaks article?
• Your wiki link to Simon Baron-Cohen in your reference misleads the reader to think that his wikipedia article has discussion supporting what you write. It doesn't. Please remove the wiki link and link only to the article. Again a kind of weasel word issue it appears. What is in the reference list should only re-direct the reader to the relevant article.
• Baron-Cohen cites a YouTube video, and autistics.org website as support for his discussion. Does this make him and/or his article an unreliable source, regardless of his status as a psychologist and contributor to Nature Magazine? Per wikipedia policy, the use of YouTube videos is unacceptable, and the autistics.org website is a self-published website from the person who did the YouTube video (Amanda Baggs) and currently run by her partner Laura Tisoncik (lnked is Netsol WHOIS public information). That Baron-Cohen uses these links and information, does this make his article unreliable?--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 19:06, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Re the first sentence in the article. About the press release issue, the third opinion person states: "Press releases and self-published information can sometimes be used as a source for what an organization thinks, as they are official communications from that organization." The first sentence could have a press release as a source, and perhaps it could read Autism Speaks states that it's a .... " I think your Activities section should be the lead paragraph for this article.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• User wrote: "One new section that I dubbed Neurodiversity was needed to capture the topic of Autism Speaks's relation to the neurodiversity movement." (1) Autism Speaks has no relation to the neurodiversity (ND). A "relation" implies a back and forth discussion. Autism Speaks says nothing of ND. Only ND speaks of Autism Speaks. (2) Again I changed the sub-section back to Criticisms as this for the time being seems more neutral; also see my comments immediately above on this issue. (3) If you'd like to continue with ND as a sub-section, I'll proceed with a Pro-Cure sub-section. I believe this change (what you've done, and me) is merely a turn-of-phrase from the previous Criticism and Praise sections, simply making it more specific. And along these lines, perhaps you could add another sub-section about the blogger vs Autism Speaks dispute, such as "Internet Autism Rights Activists" or something similar. (4) My Pro-Cure sub-section would likely be based on articles like this wikipedia one About Curing Autism and other pro-cure autism rights articles and sources. Autism rights also has do to with the right to receive treatment the right to be considered a major medical disease and treated accordingly, which entails greater benefits, support, care, understanding, etc. (5) I'll also find anti-neurodiversity responses.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 20:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Thinking more about your creation of an entire section in this article on Autism Speaks for neurodiversity (ND)...ND has nothing to do with Autism Speaks, and it's not a movement in response to Autism Speaks. Should ask for 3rd opinions about what you've done here. I wish there were others involved in content in an ongoing way besides you and I. Appears that other users may have sort of deferred to you with this article (given your good status with doing the well wikipedia well respected autism article, which lessens the time they need to expend to be involved. Too bad, and maybe this reveals a kind of inter-wikipedia politics that would be unfortunate. Others should be involved. Also, I worry about the 3rd opinion...like the previous one, are they truly 3rd party or are they involved in this politics?
• Checked your new #1 reference. After 16 paragraphs of complicated academic/science discussion, which essentially no wikipedia reader would read (very obviously...say 99% of readers would never read the article after paragraph after paragraph of unrelated complicated discussion, and then finally at paragraph 16 the relevant information)...I think a note in the reference should be made about the relevant paragraph to help the reader, such as "see paragraph 16". But anyway, see my comments immediately above about how I believe a press release and your Activities section should be for the first paragraph...press release here seems appropriate for these bare facts about the organization, and you could simply be clear that "Autism Speaks states that it's a ....." --ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 21:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Other. Strange in your Neurodiversity section, you didn't link to the wikipedia neurodiversity article.
• At that neurodiversity article, in the Talk page someone addressed the obvious lack of any discussion added about opponents in the "Proponents and Opponents" section. If you'll proceed at Autism Speaks with this neurodiversity section, I'll begin an opponent section there, and also at the autism rights movement article, which does have a section on Criticism of itself, but which should be rewritten more objectively and include Autism Speaks and other autism organizations and what they do, their goals, their conceptions, etc. Should also be written as "Pro-Cure" and "Autism as a Disease" or something like these. But again, see my first comments above about this neurodiversity subsection.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Please see #Neurodiversity etc. below. Eubulides (talk) 10:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Aside on deleted comments

(Responding to this aside):

Here is the edit that deleted my comments and those of 99.190.89.162. I presume it was a cut-and-paste glitch of some sort. No harm done, since I restored those comments. Eubulides (talk) 09:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Neurodiversity etc.

• Certainly the content of Neurodiversity, which ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion OIAD) renamed to Discussion, has everything to do with the neurodiversity movement. Both Baron-Cohen's article and the blogger issue are about the autistics rights movement (or neurodiversity movement; whatever you want to call it), which challenges the conventional notion that autism is a disease that needs curing. This is a minority opinion, of course, but it is a significant minority and should not be minimized below its due.
• Here's another quote about the ND movement that could be used:

"Many autistic people have rallied against the puzzle image by stating 'I am not a puzzle, I am a person', and have petitioned against Autism Speaks in their campaign Autism Speaks: Don't Speak for Me. Yet the public never hears about this. Autistic people are still kept on the margins. By examining the way autism is represented by our celebrities, charities, therapists and some of our scientists, we can illustrate that bias and prejudice are not limited to race or religion, but also to people with disabilities; and it is the most tolerated form of prejudice today. We live in a society that glorifies celebrites who in turn support causes about which many of them understand little. ... What if we changed the marketing model so that instead of eliciting pity, we focused on gathering respect? To construct a new marketing model for autism charities, what if we let autistic people speak and ensure that there are more autistic people running our autism society boards and that there are at least an equal number of autistic people at all our conferences as there are non-autistic ones?"

This is a quotation from page 113 and 114 of: Klar-Wolfond E (2008). "The mismeasure of autism: the basis for current autism 'advocacy'". In Lawson W (ed.) (ed.). Concepts of Normality: The Autistic and Typical Spectrum. Jessica Kingsley. pp. 104–29. ISBN 1843106043. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

• I chose Neurodiversity in a hurry. But Criticism is an inaccurate title for that section. Autism Speaks gets a lot of criticism, from a lot of different sources; this section is only about the relationship of Autism Speaks to the neurodiversity movement.
• "Anti-cure movement" is no better supported by the text than "Neurodiversity". I'm not sure where "Anti-cure movement" came from.
• The text does not state or imply that all autism activists and autism rights groups are critical of Autism Speaks. On the contrary, it explicitly says that only "some autism activists" are critical, and it mentions only one autism rights group.
• I don't know of any reliable source that states that "most" (much less "the vast majority of") autism scientists consider autism to be a disease. Until we find one, we'll have to settle for "many" instead of "most", as we do have a reliable source saying "many".
• It is common practice in Wikipedia articles to link to an author's name in one citation (not more than one; that would be overlinking). See, for example, this version of Asperger syndrome. I put in this particular wikilink only because OIAD made an inaccurate and misleading claim that the book review by Baron-Cohen "is very much not reliable". I don't have a strong feeling about the wikilink, but don't see any real harm to it.
• The Wikipedia guideline about not linking to YouTube has nothing to do with whether we can cite Baron-Cohen's review. Baron-Cohen is a notable expert in the field, and can use his own considerable judgment when deciding what to cite.
• Autism Speaks should not lead with a citation to a press release. Press releases are relatively low-quality sources, with obvious bias, and should be avoided when possible. There are plenty of reliable 3rd-party sources about the overall goals of Autism Speaks, so we don't need to reach down to the level of a press release for our very first citation (which would be a sign of a weaker article).
• Certainly there is a relationship between the neurodiversity movement and Autism Speaks. This is true regardless of whether Autism Speaks desires that relationship, or responds publicly to it.
• Again, as per WP:STRUCTURE, the article should not have separate Pro-Cure and Anti-Cure sections. It should have a single section talking about the subject of cure versus neurodiversity.
• The subject of neurodiversity is not merely a change-of-phrase from "Criticism". The old "Criticism" section had several criticisms, some of them having nothing to do with the neurodiversity movement. The new section is not about criticisms of Autism Speaks in general; it is about the relationship between the neurodiversity movement and Autism Speaks.
• The "new #1 reference" (Singh et al. 2007, PMID 17237806) is a high-quality peer-reviewed journal article and is far more reliable than a press release. There is no Wikipedia policy or guideline suggesting that we should prefer less-reliable sources merely because they address a narrower point. It is easy to verify the point in question (just search for "Autism Speaks" in the source). It would not help the user much to say "see paragraph 16"; any reader who cares enough to verify the source (and 99% won't bother to verify any source) won't be helped much by the "paragraph 16" business (it's a pain to count the paragraphs, and anyway when I counted them, the "16" seemed to be the wrong number).
• With all the above in mind, it's clear that there is a problem with calling the new section Criticism. It needs a better name. I looked at the text and it talks about viewing and portraying of autism, so for now I renamed it to Portrayal of autism.

Eubulides (talk) 10:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not entirely sure that that's the best name for it, since a lot of the issues also deal with things like copyright policy and mismanagement of money 76.105.4.66 (talk) 16:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

• Currently there's no discussion of mismanagement of money; that would be not be appropriate for the section as currently titled, of course. The blogger issue is about both neurodiversity (the underlying dispute) and copyright (the surface dispute); surely it's not a stretch to put it into a Portraying autism section, as the blogger was disputing how Autism Speaks portrays autism. Anyway, suggestion for a better title would be welcome; I agree that Portraying autism isn't perfect. Eubulides (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Through article: Quick transitions to Negativism, Pessimism, Depressing Content. POV of 1 user?

• Some examples of paragraphs that abruptly turn negative, and in places that make the turn look more a matter of POV style. Sort of like, well I'll say some positives, but will quickly turn negative.
• In Research section, last paragraph, last two sentences. "This has strained relations between the Wrights and their daughter Katie, the mother of an autistic boy. Katie believes her son's autism was caused by thiomersal, a preservative that was formerly common in children's vaccines in the U.S.; no major scientific studies have confirmed this hypothesis.[2]" For Research section purposes, seems unnecessary, unproductive, noneducational, depressing, negativistic, and irrlevant? Choice of this for Research section POV? For anywhere in article, POV? Best to focus on simple topics in this short article? Yes yes yes yes.
• Awareness section, last three sentences "Thierry accused Autism Speaks of not paying her for her work on the feature version of the film; Autism Speaks asserted that Thierry was paid in full.[12] Autism Speaks staff member Alison Singer was reportedly criticized for a scene in which she said that, when faced with having to place her autistic child in an inadequate school, she contemplated driving her car off a bridge with her child in the car. Thierry said that these feelings were not unusual among autistic mothers.[13]" For Awareness section purposes, seems unnecessary, unproductive, noneducational, depressing, negativistic, and irrlevant? Choice of this for Awareness section POV? For anywhere in article, POV? Best to focus on simple topics in this short article? Yes yes yes yes.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 05:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Cure Autism Now section. 3rd and 4th sentences. Positive, then quickly negative. Makes for a contentious tone to the article.
• I'll look for rival sources that will make the article read better...or actually I think reducing it to something like the following is less contentious and reliant on POV obscure sources...and journalists very often, unfortunately, don't get things quite right or right at all, and it's always best to keep encyclopedia articles simple due to this and not rely on particular opinions of particular journalists...which often anyway reveals the POV of the wikipedia user in selecting these journalists and the specific articles. Probably best to simply have "...CAN was successful in establishing AGRE" and that is it.
• Also I noticed in the Coukell article there is a lot of other information, and you extracted particular information based on your POV preferences it appears. There is an abundance of more neutral information that would simply introduce these basic aspects of Autism Speaks without getting involved in ISSUES (whether positive or negative issues...I try to stay away from both sides). With the Tito article I edited over the last few weeks, I simply gave his media coverage and their general perspective of him, which also was needed to show he is noteworthy of an encyclopedia...which actually probably is debatable...I deleted a lot of promotion and personal support...I bet 90+% of individuals in this encyclopedia are not encyclopedic...but I guess Internet encyclopedias are different, and that wikipedia comes at the top in Google searches has gotten tons of people involved in promoting themselves and others. In Encyclopedia Brittanica I wonder if Autism Speaks would get, at best, two sentences, and one reference. And nothing for autism rights movement, neurodiversity, and most of these people.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see how one could write an encyclopedic article about Autism Speaks without mentioning the controversy among the Wrights over whether vaccines cause autism. It's a notable topic, which has come up multiple times in the mainstream media. It is central to the core mission of Autism Speaks: when they say they are promoting research into causes, do they mean research into genetic influences (which is what mainstream science and medicine say the evidence points to), or research into environmental influences (which is a popular explanation, but where the scientific evidence is weak)?
• The Autism Every Day controversy is less notable, and it wouldn't hurt to trim it a bit. However, it was reported in Fox News and as such is a notable topic here. It would be odd for Autism Speaks to spend considerable space on press releases while ignoring mainstream-media reports.
• More generally, it is not POV to accurately summarize what reliable sources say on these topics, even if the summaries contain negative information. It is not Wikipedia's job to be a cheerleader.

Eubulides (talk) 06:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• If you look, you'll find as much controversy as you want, and about as much as you want. Bloggers, gossip, inter-familial conflict (who knows if it's being reported accurately...and often supposed quotes of the parties involved are totally wrong), payment for movies, he said she said, Internet based movements run by who knows, and who make unilateral criticisms based in the Internet, a relatively tiny percentage out of tens of thousands of scientists who go outside the norm and cite YouTube videos and anonymous website such as autistics.org that they think are autism rights websites when in fact they are anonymous sites run by 1-2 people who try to lead the public to believe it is a community website of a massive number of supporters...Baron-Cohen did poor inquiring into this before he wrote about it in his article, and his use of a YouTube video as a legitimate source...reveals his lack of serious critical inquiry, but yes he's a good scientist otherwise.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that one can easily find controversy within unreliable sources. But we are not talking about unreliable sources here. The New York Times article is a reliable source, as is Baron-Cohen 2008 (doi:10.1038/454695a). The latter's "poor inquiring" is based on a peer-reviewed article Baron-Cohen wrote on the subject (Baron-Cohen 2000, PMID 11014749), an article that has been cited by over two dozen other scholarly sources (according to Google Scholar). If this is "poor inquiring", then almost all the sources currently in Autism Speaks would have to be removed; this would of course include all the press releases and self-published material.
• It would not make sense to remove pertinent details, such as why CAN established AGRE, or why the CAN founders didn't simply join NAAR. These provide important motivation for the creation of these projects and organizations, and should not be removed simply because they might be perceived to be negative.

Eubulides (talk) 09:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Impatient vs disagreeing

This edit replaced "impatient" with "disagreeing", arguing that "impatient" made the CAN founders sound immature and unprofessional. I don't think "impatient" has these negative connotations; on the contrary, I think "disagreeing" has more negative connotations than "impatient" does. But regardless of my opinion, the more-important point is that the cited source (Coukell 2006) says "impatient":

"Upon learning that Shestack and Iversen planned to start an organization, the Londons invited them to join NAAR's board. But Shestack was impatient with what he considered NAAR's overly cautious commitment to working within the scientific establishment. During lunch one day, Shestack recalls, London told him, 'You can't hurry science.'"

This is a key quote of the source; it motivates the source's title "You can hurry science". We should not water down a key point like that based on an (arguably incorrect) perception of negative connotations; instead, we should accurately summarize what the source says. I reverted the change. Eubulides (talk) 09:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

True News

It is true news that the chief executive resigned because they wanted to waste more money researching vaccines. Someone changed my news. Can we change it again. I asked someone what happens now but I don't know yet. Peta Cook (talk) 02:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Wiki edits should be based up WP:RS and WP:V; please provide a reliable source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone wrote a message in a box to me. Maybe Sandy. Thank you. I checked on the internet and straight away I found the news. It is true. http://actionforautism.co.uk/2009/01/16/singer-resigns-from-autism-speaks/ What happens now? Peta Cook (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, it doesn't sound all that notable. Do we have a reliable source (as per WP:RS) reporting this? If it's just press releases or blogs, I wouldn't worry about adding it here. Eubulides (talk) 05:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a rather significant event. Here's a link to a reliable source, and a commentary about it:

• Luscombe R. Charity chief quits over autism row. British Guardian, Jan 25, 2009

• Commentary from another source: Autism scaremongers blasted. Alison Singer, senior vice president of communications and strategy of Autism Speaks, has resigned because of the group's position that vaccination could be a cause of autism. Singer belongs to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), the U.S. government agency for formulating strategy for tackling autism. Earlier this month, the IACC voted against committing money for two more autism/vaccine studies. By voting the the majority, Singer clashed with Autism Speaks' policy and decided to resign. In a recent interview, she noted that many scientific studies have disproved the link first suggested in 1998 and that Autism Speaks should let go of that idea. She also criticized actress Jenny McCarthy, who claims that her six-year-old son has "recovered" from autism that she attributes to vaccination. "We need to listen to experts and not to actresses," Singer said. "There's too much attention paid to people like Jenny McCarthy, who is not a doctor. When you listen to her, she doesn't speak in facts." Founded in 2005, Autism Speaks is the world's largest charitable organization that targets autism. Its reported gross income for 2007 was $44 million.

-- Fyslee (talk) 19:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a reliable source, and I added some text along those lines. Eubulides (talk) 20:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks good now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticisms?

Why isn't there a criticism section? It was the incident about the autistic blogger with the screen name Abscout that I was hoping to read about. It is included, but that is almost the only criticism. I hear far more criticisms in the community, so I think a major part of this article is missing.--74.124.187.76 (talk) 16:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at our guidelines on appropriate sources for this encyclopedia. If criticism of Autism Speaks is found in such independent, reliable sources, then it can and probably should be included here. If not, then not. MastCell ^Talk 18:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

And why does it seem that this article is biased towards Autism speaks and against the people it abuses? How much is Wikipedia being payed to support Autism Speaks or to side against the people they bully? Every time someone sides with the autistics in here and against people who exploit them like Autism Speaks, they are attacked, abused, and bullied. Why is that?--74.124.187.76 (talk) 20:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The previous comment is based on incorrect assumptions and innuendo. Please stick to specific comments that will improve the article, such as comments that propose specific wording changes that include reliable sources. MastCell's advice is good advice. Eubulides (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There is credible information from none other than the Autism Speaks site itself that they spend less on Family Services grants than they do on office expenses. May this be added to the article if the URL is quoted? BrandNewUsername (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

There's also information from the same source relating to the amazingly high salaries paid to executives of this "non-profit" organisation which I think should be added too. BrandNewUsername (talk) 00:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No, probably not. MastCell's comment above directing people to this page is still appropriate. The short version is that criticism, and what you propose is criticism, should be sourced to independent reliable sources. Books, journals, newspapers, that kind of thing. Trawling through primary source documents like filings and drawing conclusions, or even just selectively quoting from them, is not acceptable here. Let the journalists or academics do the work, then quote them. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have done some digging. I want to write about controversies surrounding the group's beliefs on autism, and what the community thinks of them. I have articles from reliable sources such as Time and New Scientist. Now can I write? —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrandNewUsername (talk • contribs) 07:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The New Scientist is already cited twice. I didn't know about the TIME article but just now added it. Thanks for mentioning it. Further suggestions and contributions are welcome. Eubulides (talk) 08:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, the Autism community's view of Autism Speaks is so overwhelmingly negative as to make even the word "controversial" inaccurate. The criticisms need to be made more central to the article. They're currently tacked onto the end of the "Portrayal of Autism" section. I'll work on it; it's why I made this account - LouisKablooey (talk) 20:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like there's a "Criticism section created, out of control ranting added, section deleted entirely, repeat" cycle going on. It will need to be monitored. Editors will also need to take care to revert instead of delete. - LouisKablooey (talk) 00:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I echo the concerns above that this article is overly biased towards AS POV. We have disgraced Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy as members and the only criticism is in a small section and only about the fact that they consider autism a "disease"? I'm really surprised at this. I expected better from Wikipedia. Ultra Venia (talk) 17:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Alex quote

A recent edit by an IP address, which I just now reverted, appended the following text to the lead:

'However, the autistic community does not approve of Autism Speaks. According to Wrong Planet: "Autism Speaks, which claims to speak for autism, has no autistic employees or board members with autism and is viewed as a bully by many autistic individuals who feel that the organization engages in tactics that marginalize their voices and contribute to an environment that hurts the lives of those with Autism. Their most recent move certainly supports such an argument."'

There are several things wrong with this addition. First, the quote isn't sourced. Second, the source of the quote (I looked it up) is a blogger; we need reliable sources for text in Wikipedia, and as Autism Speaks #Portrayal of autism's coverage of this topic is already backed by a reliable source (Biever in New Scientist) we shouldn't be citing unreliable sources here. Third, the lead is supposed to summarize the body, not have extra advocacy; any coverage of criticism of Autism Speaks should be in the body and should be only briefly summarized in the lead (just like everything else in the article). Eubulides (talk) 15:26, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Even a patch of graffiti is a reliable source, if you're talking about the graffiti itself. That paragraph claimed that the autistic community did not approve of Autism Speaks, and it used a primary source--namely, a piece of criticism--to back up this claim. That's not to say, though, that the paragraph's claim was not too strong; "the autistic community" is not a single entity capable of having an opinion. Take a look at the following:

Wrong Planet, an online community for individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome, does not approve of Autism Speaks. It says, "Autism Speaks, which claims to speak for autism, has no autistic employees or board members with autism and is viewed as a bully by many autistic individuals who feel that the organization engages in tactics that marginalize their voices and contribute to an environment that hurts the lives of those with Autism. Their most recent move certainly supports such an argument." [9]

Perhaps, though, it would be better to write about what this blog post is referring to, rather than the blog post itself. --98.209.136.197 (talk) 03:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Clarification needed

The sentence: Autism Speaks's advocacy has been based on the view of autism as a disease, a view shared by many but not all autism scientists. is solely based on the book review source linked in this paragraph. This is in my view not really a valid source. I would doubt that there are medical scientists that would not view autism as a disease. Prof. Stuart Murray, whose book is being reviewed in the linked source is a Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film. This paragraph needs clarification on who in the scientific community does not view autism as a disease.--Meisterkoch (talk) 14:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we need "clarification on who in the scientific community does not view autism as a disease". It might be nice to have such a list of prominent names and their cited opinions, but that's a bunch of work.

What we need is an NPOV statement that there are many viewpoints out there, and that AS is at one end with people with ASDs at the other, also that there's a large middle ground. While we could also list advocates and locate them within that, our encylopedic and neutral goal can be met by merely toning down our statement to say that "there are differences of opinion".

There's also the point that I wouldn't distinguish AS alone as claiming "autism is a disease" or "autism is a medical condition". That's (particularly the 2nd form) a very widely held view and not what makes AS' position so controversial. They go beyond this to claim that it is a condition, it can be cured, and (most controversially) that it should be cured. It's that exclusion of accceptance for autism as an "acceptable personality difference" that polarised many people with autistic conditions (most notably Asperger's) against AS as an organisation. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you wrote, however can we please refine the first sentence into sth. more eloquent, sophisticated? If there can be any currently accepted general "mainstream" view of autism (...) Please see also Classifications by ICD, OMIM etc. When I wrote earlier that I would like to know who in the scientific community does not view autism as a condition, I rather wanted to point out that if possible I would like to see proof that some scientist do not consider autism as a disease. Not by referencing a book review, but by a statement from a Professor, a published paper, etc.? If we write that there are different views within the scientific community to what extent Autism is a medical condition, I would not have any problem with it, but by simply stating that parts of the scientific community do not consider autism as a disease without a source, I do have my problems with it. --Meisterkoch (talk) 16:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That first sentence is clumsy, so feel free.

"I would like to see proof that some scientist do not consider autism as a disease." is problematic, as it depends on precise definitions of disease. Barring some autistic equivalent of Helicobacter pylori, I think we're unlikely to see a cause from infectious disease, but just try telling that to the parents of NT kids in a classroom with an autistic kid! As "disease" is so widely (and wrongly) equated with infectious disease, I'd suggest that our most neutral wording would be to avoid it generally in favour of "disorder" or "condition".

If we re-phrase your request as, "I would like to see proof that some scientist do not consider autism as a disorder.", then I know of no such scientist. When I've heard that opinion expressed, it hasn't been from scientists, acting in a scientific capacity. As non-scientists do most of their publishing through wordpress, livejournal etc., any supporting citations would probably (and wrongly) be removed as WP does so like to shoot the messenger's medium. It's not a view I hold myself, but there are those who do and we're required to respect that. There are certainly analogies with deafness and homosexuality, both the cultural aspects of deafness compared to cultural autism (however isolationist they might be seen as) and also the medicalisation of homosexuality and the attempts to "treat" it by medical intervention through the mid-20th century (and sadly, more recently).

This isn't an article on "causes of autism" though, it's on Autism Speaks. Their notability (and the source of their friction with much of the autistic community) is that their view of autism is at the extreme end of "disease", such that they see it as so wholly negative that a cure is paramount, rather than any level of acceptance of it as a "difference" in a person's nature (and the analogies with the treatment of homosexuality in the 1950s are very obvious). This is not a view that's shared by most scientists. Even scientists accepting a "disease" cause and description of autism (which I'd see as a majority view, provided that we keep to a medical definition of disease and one that includes internal dysfunctions as well) don't generally go this far.

The crucial point that this section must convey isn't a distinction between "general disease view" vs. "autistic community difference", it's instead between "general disease view" and the 'curebie' "curable, cure-essential, disease that should be eradicated forthwith" view that seems so specific to Autism Speaks. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think there are two possible ways of interpreting the first sentence. One is that people object to Autism Speaks because Autism Speaks believes autism is an acquired condition that can be cured, and therefore are diverting millions of dollars into research that has virtually no chance of producing anything useful, since it is generally agreed that autism cannot be cured. The other possible interpretation is that people object to Autism Speaks because Autism Speaks believes that, should a cure be found, it should be given to pregnant mothers so that they will not run the risk of giving birth to an autistic child. Do we know which sense was meant? The PDF simply contains the same phrases almost verbatim so there's nothing much to see there. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 18:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes are original research

The recent changes to this article cause the article to disagree with its sources, which is a no-no. The source says that "many" autism scientists think that autism is a disease, not "some". And the source does not say that these scientists think autism is "curable", so the article should not say that. Nor does the source say anything like "many of whom have an autistic spectrum condition themselves", so this article should not say that. Nor does any source say "These two views from polarised opinions have each reacted acrimoniously to the other. Autism Speaks's standpoint is decried as the "curebie" view and criticised for its wholly negative portrayal of autistic conditions." so our article should not say that. Nor does any source say "Autism Speaks have responded to such criticism with legal threats.", so our article should not say that. Finally, can I please ask that citations not be reformatted into one-line-per-parameter format? Let's just keep their format they way they are. For now I am reverting the abovementioned changes, as they constitute original research and thus can't be in Wikipedia; I suggest discussing them further here first, so that we can come up with something that isn't original research. Eubulides (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You've claimed that both:

* This section disagrees with its sources

* This section has no sources

You can't have it both ways.

Secondly, the claim of legal threats (which certainly does need sourcing) was already referenced (New Scientist) shortly afterwards, where the threat was discussed in detail. Duplicating the cite to the first mention too was editorially ugly, but hardly difficult. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• I did not claim that the Portrayal of autism section had no sources. It clearly did (and still does). However, the recent changes to the section contained much material that was unsourced, and introduced text that disagreed with the sources that the section cited. This contradicts Wikipedia policy.
• The cited source nowhere said "legal threats", and the article's use of emotion-laden language like that is clearly introduction of editorial POV, contrary to policy. The cited source did mention demands, but this topic is already covered in the next paragraph, which cites that source and talking about "legal demands"; reiterating the topic in the first paragraph and escalating it to "legal threats" is clearly a POV and a WP:WEIGHT violation.

Eubulides (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I forgot, there was one other paragraph that was unsourced:

'If there can be any currently accepted general "mainstream" view of autism, it would be of it as one or more medical conditions with an acceptance that there is little current understanding of its causes, and even less prospect of reversing it.'

This is also original research, of course; we can't say that on our own. And one other thing: the book review in question is by Simon Baron-Cohen, one of the world's leading autism researchers; this is a reliable source. Eubulides (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Then you ought to delete the entire section, because you've removed any meaningful content from it. Why not state that, "Autism Speaks's advocacy has been based on the view of autism as being suffered by bipeds with opposable thumbs, a view shared by many autism scientists" It's not inconsistent with any claims made, and it's equally meaningless.

Autism Speaks's advocacy is not based on the view of autism as a disease, but on the view of autism as one very narrow interpretation of disease: wholly negative, and in desperate need of a cure. Where they diverge from the mainstream is in the narrowness of that view, not in seeing a disease in the broader sense. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The current text is supported by a reliable source; our opinion about Autism Speaks's advocacy do not trump that of a reliable source. I don't know of any reliable source that talks about Autism Speaks with reference to bipeds with opposable thumbs. Eubulides (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The hugely important reference that you talk about (Living Googles) is an irrelevance to this section, highly misleading as its not a direct comment on Autism Speaks (as might be thought from its use here), and the article would be better if this cite was removed from this section.

That reference is Baron-Cohen's review of Murray's book, both of whom have different, but relatively centrist, viewpoints. Murray's is clearly closer to the "difference not disease" stance than Baron-Cohen, who is now advocating a genetic explanation for both classical autism & Asperger's. Although this review & ref does literally place the text "a view that many but not all autism scientists would endorse." alongside a quote from Autism Speaks, this is in the context of commentary on Murray, not on Autism Speaks. It should certainly not be read as Baron-Cohen advocating Autism Speaks's own position (and its extreme nature) as being shared by "many but not all" scientists. It is misleading to describe Autism Speaks's position as simply "autism is a disease" because they are far beyond this (unmentioned in the Living Googles ref), way past any common consensus outside their group, even amongst the mainstream "scientists who see autism as a disease" view. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

No reliable source has been proffered to support the claim that Autism Speaks is 'far beyond this (unmentioned in the Living Googles ref), way past any common consensus outside their group, even amongst the mainstream "scientists who see autism as a disease" view'. I am skeptical that this claim is true, and it would need a reliable source to be in the article. In contrast, Baron-Cohen is a reliable source for a summary of the mainstream view and its relation to Autism Speaks. Baron-Cohen himself advocates the minority "difference not disease" position, by the way, so the previous comment seems to be based at least in part on a misunderstanding. The book review by Baron-Cohen is a reliable source by one of the leading experts in the field, and its paragraph discussing Autism Speaks is directly on point. A better (lengthier) source would be welcome but in the meantime there's no good reason to remove this source. Eubulides (talk) 16:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The difficulty with RS for comment on Autism Speaks is the typical WP problem of rejecting primary sources. Their own material is enough for the "autism MUST be cured" position. A moment's searching through the autism community discussions, particularly for "curebie", will turn up the reaction to this. I don't expect you to accept these as RS, but they might change your skepticism.

If you could please direct me to the Baron-Cohen "paragraph discussing Autism Speaks" then I'd be grateful. There's a mention of them in passing, but it's still about Murray's views, in an article on Murray's book. It's not specific enough about Autism Speaks to be of any useful value to us here. The reference doesn't support this section, it's merely cited by it, as little more than a proof by authority.

Nor do I know what Baron-Cohen's current position is. I used to think he was sympathetic to the "difference not disease" position from the community, but the last statements I've seen from him were those horribly politically inept recent press releases on genetic testing for autism. Even allowing that poor framing of them might have allowed their true intent to be misrepresented, they're a pretty clear indication that he holds a "genetic" viewpoint, and they were far from helpful to the community view. Agreed, if we're taking a technical interpretation of meaning, this isn't contrary to the "difference" position, but it's the sort of "WP:RS" comment that means one thing, yet is taken to mean quite the other when in mass circulation. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that there is a sourcing problem, just as there would be a sourcing problem for the criticism that Autism Speaks is yet another charity that fleeces unsuspecting donors and diverts large sums of money into its own pockets (another criticism that can easily be found among unreliable sources). But a Wikipedia article on X is not supposed to be a dumping ground for all criticisms of X, no matter how poorly supported. (If that were the case, the Barack Obama article would be overwhelmed by material supplied by critics of every stripe and persuasion, no matter how fringe.) We need to have reliable sources that talk about the topic and place criticisms in context.
• The paragraph that discusses Autism Speaks is the final and concluding paragraph of "Living Googles?" (PDF). Baron-Cohen's position that autism's causes are mostly genetic is clearly the mainstream position, and it is not at all inconsistent with his (less-mainstream) position that autism should be viewed as a difference and not a disease.
• I don't understand the last sentence of the previous comment. The first paragraph of Autism Speaks #Portrayal of autism accurately summarizes the source. If it could be written more clearly, could you please propose a specific wording change to do that?

Eubulides (talk) 19:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Problematic text moved from article

In June of 2008 another autistic blogger was met with legal demands by Autism Speaks after designing a shirt critical of the organization. The shirt's claimed "Autism Speaks can go away, I have Autism. I can Speak For Myself." Autism Speaks complained to the third party vendor who manufactured the shirt that the shirt violated copyright and trademark. [10][11] The complaint was later rejected by the third party vendor. Autism Speaks claims to have not made this allegation[12] but communications with the third party vendor indicate they were made by Autism Speaks.

• The first source is self-published and as such is only a reliable source for the author's personal views.
• The second source is also self-published, and is not attributed to any author, and the entry ends with a note that says Wrong Planet isn't really sure what happened.
• The next sentence (The complaint was later rejected by the third party vendor) is original research and doesn't match the letter printed in the second source.
• The third source is again self-published and therefore reliable as a source of opinion, but the text above doesn't match what the source says.
• The remainder of that sentence (communications with the third party vendor indicate they were made by Autism Speaks) is original research.

All in all, what we're left with is a series of confusing and dubious claims and counter claims, none of them made by reliable sources. This doesn't belong in Wikipedia unless its gets better coverage. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

That text has been added and removed before. I was considering removing it myself, but the person who added it was under scrutiny at the time and I figured that if the other people watching him didnt have a problem with that edit, neither did I. I have no firm opinion now. —Soap— 22:37, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Collection of links related to controversies over Autism Speaks

I've just now created a subpage of this talk page: /Controversy_links and filled it with a collection of links related to controversies involving Autism Speaks. While most of them are not WP:RS themselves, they may be helpful in identifying topics for the article, and determining the degree of notability of various issues. Additions are gratefully appreciated. JesseW, the juggling janitor 21:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Suppressing criticism yet again

[This https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Autism_Speaks&curid=22282057&diff=602212156&oldid=602208256] is a bad edit. 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 10:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Criticism should be added only when they meet WP:RS. The first was a link to the talk page, second was to a Tumblr page. Neither comes close to meeting RS. Yobol (talk) 14:06, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Funny how the need to find sourcing is so easy to recommend to others, yet those deleting are always incapable of it themselves. Who are the autistic people on the board of Autism Speaks? The claim that there aren't any (and there aren't) is removed as unsourced, yet the counter claim that nameless autists are represented is unchallenged, despite being (per Popper) the one that's obviously sourceable, if only it were true. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:35, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Um, what? If you find other poorly sourced material, feel free to remove that as well. I just removed a blatant example of poorly sourced material, added to the lead no less. If you want to add that material back, you might want to read WP:BURDEN. Yobol (talk) 14:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLP concerns and weak sources

WP:RS indicates that blogs are not given much credence as sources for articles. WireTap is a shuttered blog, and does not appear to have a significant amount of editorial control. In any case, the Battleground: The Media reference is, as I understand it, republishing based off material from WireTap. The book is currently in the process of being removed from distribution by the publisher due to concerns over the book's accuracy, although no formal retraction has been issued at this time.

I think BLP indicates that such information, if contested and weakly sourced, should be removed. LFaraone 00:46, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

BLP does not apply to organizations. Please see WP:BLPGROUP. Henrymrx (t·c) 18:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merger: Light It Up Blue

The Light It Up Blue initiative/event is a fundraising campaign for Autism Speaks. It does not exist without Autism Speaks. Therefore, the information on Light It Up Blue is entirely within the purview of this article. Muffinator (talk) 00:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Support: Examining the sources, I'm not entirely sure it's notable outside its relation to Autism Speaks. Therefore, I believe it should be merged. - Purplewowies (talk) 00:01, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Oppose: A notable social movement. RoyalMate1 20:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment: But is it notable outside its connection to Autism Speaks? Is it independently notable? Most sources I find stress its connection to Autism Speaks in a way that seems like it's not notable without the connection. (In short, I'm wondering if you have sources that discuss it independently of Autism Speaks, Royalmate1.) - Purplewowies (talk) 18:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

When discussion is so slow, just go ahead and do it. If anyone objects you will see it then. Currently it's only cluttering the article. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 18:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:BRD

The generally accepted flow in disputes is outlined at WP:BRD. If you boldly make a change and it is reverted, it is time to discuss the issue. BRBRBRD is not a generally accepted alternative.

Franklludwig added material sourced to buzzfeed, which is not a reliable source. I reverted for that reason. Franklludwig undid the revert without explanation. Strongjam reverted for the same reason. Franklludwig restored the material, citing a Facebook group, which is not a reliable source. I have re-re-reverted the addition and this is the discussion. Discuss. - SummerPhD (talk) 18:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

The fact that the media have remained quiet and none of the established websites have written about it doesn't alter the fact that it happened, and the Facebook thread in itself is proof for that. I can't see any plausible reason for removing the paragraph apart from protecting Autism Speaks from criticism. - Frank L. Ludwig— Preceding unsigned comment added by Franklludwig (talk • contribs) 19:39, May 13, 2015‎

Policy requires us to source all claims to reliable sources. If something isn't in mainstream sources then it shouldn't be on Wikipedia. — Strongjam (talk) 19:48, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

While you may feel that independent reliable sources "should have" reported on this, Wikipedia only covers material that was covered by independent reliable sources. Self-published sources are not sufficient here. - SummerPhD (talk) 19:56, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Now that we have a parade of IPs (likely socks) restoring the edit, I guess it's time for page protection. - SummerPhD (talk) 11:39, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Wow Wow Wubzy?

The lead of this article claims that Autism Speaks uses Wow Wow Wubzy as a mascot. However, the link to the article on their website about it just mentions that they worked with them once for something on Nick's website in 2009. At the very least, is this really worth mentioning in the lead? The blue puzzle piece is definetly significantly more important to their image and is the "mascot" that I personally think should be mentioned in the lead. Wubzy at best strikes me as oddly fascinating trivia. Luthien22 (talk) 15:44, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Updates to Awareness section

Hello to editors watching this page. To provide some more detail for this article, based on sources about Autism Speaks, I have prepared a few sentences for the Awareness section that I would like to suggest for inclusion. The updates are intended to offer more information about the co-founder of Autism Speaks, Suzanne Wright, who has been heavily involved in awareness activities since the founding of the organization. As disclosure, I should note: I am here on behalf of Bob and Suzanne Wright as part of my work at Beutler Ink. Due to my financial conflict of interest, I will not make any edits to the article myself but hope that uninvolved editors will review and make the edits if they look ok.

You can see my proposed updates here, in green, and the full markup is available below:

Proposed Awareness draft

Awareness

One of Autism Speaks' roles since its founding in 2005 by Bob and Suzanne Wright is to increase awareness.

The Walk for Autism Research program conducts an annual autism walk on Long Island, New York; the walk attracted 20,000 participants in October, 2006, and raised $2 million.

Prior to her leave of absence in 2015, Suzanne Wright had been called the face and voice of the organization. She appeared on NBC's The Today Show to discuss the Ad Council campaign launched in conjunction with Autism Speaks to raise autism awareness and to highlight the importance of early detection. Wright addressed the United Nations in December 2007, urging its members to accept the World Autism Day resolution. In addition to helping in the designation of April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day, Wright has been credited with assisting the launch of Autism Speaks' Light It Up Blue campaign and annual World Focus on Autism event.

Autism Speaks sponsored and distributes the short film Autism Every Day, produced by Lauren Thierry and Eric Solomon.

References

Markup

====Awareness===
[[File:5F23.jpg|thumb|On April 2, 2013 the [[Cloth Hall, Ypres]], [[Belgium]] with {{Ill|nl|Nieuwerck}} was lit up blue for the [[World Autism Day#World Autism Day|World Autism Day]].]]

One of Autism Speaks' roles since its founding in 2005 by Bob and Suzanne Wright is to increase awareness.<ref name=Leaders11>{{cite web |url=http://www.leadersmag.com/issues/2011.2_apr/New%20Frontiers%20in%20Doing%20Good/LEADERS-Suzanne-Bob-Wright-Autism-Speaks.html |title=A Strong Voice: An interview with Suzanne and Bob Wright, co-founders, Autism Speaks |author= |date=April 2011 |work= |publisher=Leaders Magazine |accessdate=28 March 2016}}</ref>

The Walk for Autism Research program conducts an annual autism walk on [[Long Island, New York]]; the walk attracted 20,000 participants in October, 2006, and raised $2 million.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.autismspeaks.org/walk_events/long_island_kickoff.php |title= Long Island Walk holds enthusiastic 2007 kick off |publisher= Autism Speaks |year=2007 |accessdate=2008-11-21| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20081007131938/http://www.autismspeaks.org/walk_events/long_island_kickoff.php| archivedate= 7 October 2008 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref>

Prior to her leave of absence in 2015,<ref name=Donnelly15/> Suzanne Wright had been called the face and voice of the organization.<ref name=NantucketToday12>{{cite news |title=Bob & Suzanne Wright |url=http://digitaleditions.sheridan.com/publication/?i=132541&p=63 |newspaper=Nantucket Today |date=Winter 2012 |accessdate=28 April 2016}}</ref> She appeared on [[NBC]]'s ''[[Today (NBC program)|The Today Show]]'' to discuss the [[Ad Council]] campaign launched in conjunction with Autism Speaks to raise autism awareness and to highlight the importance of early detection.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.autismspeaks.org/inthenews/today_suzanne_wright_alert.php |title= Suzanne Wright discusses new Autism Speaks awareness campaign on Today Show, MSNBC |publisher= Autism Speaks |accessdate=2008-11-21}}</ref> Wright addressed the [[United Nations]] in December 2007, urging its members to accept the World Autism Day resolution.<ref name=Pace09>{{cite news |title=Philanthropist wages fight to cure autism |last1=Pace |first1=Giacinta |url=http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33868343/ns/us_news-giving/t/philanthropist-wages-fight-cure-autism/#.Vx_cHqMrLVo |newspaper=[[NBC News]] |date=12 November 2009 |accessdate=28 April 2016}}</ref><ref name=HuffingtonPost13>{{cite news |title=World Autism Awareness Day 2013: A conversation with Bob and Suzanne Wright |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grown-and-flown/world-autism-awareness-day_b_2944287.html |newspaper=[[Huffington Post]] |date=2 April 2013 |accessdate=28 April 2016}}</ref> In addition to helping in the designation of April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day, Wright has been credited with assisting the launch of Autism Speaks' Light It Up Blue campaign and annual World Focus on Autism event.<ref name=Donnelly15>{{cite news |title=Autism warrior turns focus to a new battle |last1=Donnelly |first1=Shannon |url=http://theinsiderblog.blog.palmbeachdailynews.com/2015/11/03/autism-warrior-turns-focus-to-a-new-battle/ |newspaper=[[Palm Beach Daily News]] |date=3 November 2015 |accessdate=28 April 2016}}</ref>

Autism Speaks sponsored and distributes the short film ''[[Autism Every Day]]'', produced by Lauren Thierry and Eric Solomon.<ref name="Moore AS">{{cite news |title= Hard-hitting look at autism is being shown at Sundance |author= Moore AS |work= New York Times |url=http://nytimes.com/2007/01/21/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/21lifilm.html |date=2007-01-21 |accessdate=2008-11-16}}</ref>

I welcome feedback and for others to share their thoughts on my suggested additions here. Happy to respond to any questions here. Many thanks! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 01:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Pinging this request, in case anyone watching this page is able to take a look. @SummerPhDv2.0: as you seem to be active on this page (and have been over time), I'm wondering if you'd be interested to review this request? Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:06, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Dropping another note here to let see if editors are able to look at this request. @Quackslikeaduck: I see you added the infobox containing a mention of Suzanne and Bob Wright as co-founders earlier this year. If you have a moment, can you assist here? Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:37, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

 Done , I added much of the proposed content. I added content that is relevant to Autism Speaks, rather than only to Wright. I did not add a redundant citation. I reworded the content regarding the United Nations resolution based on the information in the citation given. 16912 Rhiannon, thank you for respecting WP:COI. ~ Quacks Like a Duck (talk) 22:03, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks much, Quacks Like a Duck. Appreciate your review and making the updates. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 17:32, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

eugenics, genocide

autism speaks advocates genocide against autistic people. the united nations definition of genocide reads:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

while autistic people don't comprise a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, autism speaks does cause serious bodily and mental harm to autistic people by advocating aba, a form of child abuse which is used against autistic children, and their primary goal is to be able to prevent the birth of future autistic people.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.182.15 (talk • contribs) 22:40, April 4, 2016‎

You need to cite an independent reliable source which specifically states Autism Speaks has ties to eugenics. Without that, this is WP:OR and cannot be included. - SummerPhD^v2.0 03:17, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

It says on their site that they want to prevent autism. That, by definition, is genocide! Mage Resu (talk) 01:21, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

That is your fairly far-ranging interpretation, apparently based on the assumption that people with autism constitute a ethnic, national, racial, or religious group and that finding a effective preventative measure would be the systematic elimination of that group. Taking those two leaps and gluing them together is not objectively reporting what independent reliable sources say about Autism Speaks.

The article currently states, "Autism Speaks stated as its goal 'to accelerate and fund biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments and cure for autism spectrum disorders; to increase awareness of the disorder; and to improve the quality of life of affected individuals and their families'." If, as you propose, this is clearly a call for genocide, it should be a simple matter to find a reliable source saying that. We do not have such sources. - SummerPhD^v2.0 03:07, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources claiming that it is a call for genocide. Just look around! Is Autism $peaks paying you to write any of this? How isn't this a call for genocide. Mage Resu (talk) 05:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

There are "plenty of sources" saying lots of things. If you'd like to say Hitler is alive and well and ruling the Fourth Reich from Antarctica, there are plenty of sources for that. Fake Moon landings, Satanic toothpaste companies, various world leaders are human-alien hybrids, etc.: All have "plenty of sources". This, however, is a biomedical issue on Wikipedia. To state emphatically that autism is not a disease, we need sources that meet the criteria outlined at WP:MEDRS which unequivocally say that.

To add "eugenics" as a see also here, you will need independent reliable sources tying the two together.

I have reverted part of your changes as being heavily POV. Per WP:BRD, you will need to discuss the issue and build a consensus for the change. You will need to slow down a bit and partialize here. Rather than trying to tackle such a huge change all at once, I would suggest working on a consensus for one piece at a time. (As my change from "diagnosed autistic" to "diagnosed with autism" was reverted, I will discuss that below.) - SummerPhD^v2.0 13:10, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

As the other editor said:

The fact that the media have remained quiet and none of the established websites have written about it doesn't alter the fact that it happened, and the Facebook thread in itself is proof for that. I can't see any plausible reason for removing the paragraph apart from protecting Autism Speaks from criticism.

While a claim made by someone in a Facebook post is definitely unreliable, a citation pointing to a conversation that happened on Facebook to prove that it did indeed happen is valid. How do you not realize that? Mage Resu (talk) 16:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are talking about. Previously, we were (I thought) discussing your wish to say that the organization calls for genocide and desire to publicize various conflicts the organizations have run into with various individuals. Now you are referring to another user's wish to include some minor attack on the organization's Facebook page early last year.[13] Yes, large organizations often have to deal with various issues raised by individuals: Someone is using (the name and logo for Autism Speaks/the Red Cross/images of Mickey Mouse) on their (blog/veterinary clinic sign/t-shirts). The organization threatens legal action. The (blog is taken down/sign is changed/t-shirts are no longer sold). We can document that it happened. We can document that thousands of things happened. They are not necessarily meaningful in the history of Autism Speaks/the American Red Cross/Disney. How do we decide which are relevant and which are clutter? Coverage in independent reliable sources.

If you feel you have material to add that has been discussed in independent reliable sources, please discuss it here, along with the sources.

If you feel there is material in the article that is not appropriately sourced to independent reliable sources, please explain here.

Please note that this article is about Autism Speaks, it is not a WP:COATRACK for discussing whether autism is a disease/disability/condition/flavor/color/nuance/whatever and whether or not it should be prevented/treated/cured/repected/feared/painted over/enhance with a dash of paprika/whatever.

All sources must be reliable. Claims of a biomedical nature will need to meet a higher standard, as will potentially contentious claims about living people.

WP:WEIGHT is certainly an issue. What one popular magazine article says gets less attention than a specific issue addressed in featured articles is the highest quality sources.

So far as I have seen, we do not have independent reliable sources stating that this organization has any involvement in crimes agains humanity. It is a very serious charge, one which Wikipedia will not make on its own. - SummerPhD^v2.0 22:13, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Diagnosed "autistic" or "with autism"

I made the change and was reverted.[14]

The source cited says he was diagnosed "with autism". Additionally, "autism" is a condition. A diagnosis defines a condition. "Autistic" is either an adjective (not a diagnosis) or a person with autism. A diagnosis, therefore, would be the name of a condition ""cancer", "left-handed", "allergies"" not an adjective ("cancerous") or a description of the patient ("lefty", "allergy sufferer"). - SummerPhD^v2.0 13:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree. The diagnosis is called "autism," not "autistic." This is not an issue of using identity-first over person-first language. The change to "diagnosed with autism" should be restored. CatPath (talk) 17:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I reverted your change again because one person saying that they agree isn't enough. Please discuss further before reverting again. Thank you. Mage Resu (talk) 14:16, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

1) The weak consensus (2:1) is for "autism".

2) The source directly states "...Christian received a diagnosis of autism..."

3) The article also states that someone else left "following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer." They were not "diagnosed cancerous".

4) Linguistically, one is diagnosed with a condition: "autism" is a condition.

5) Your only counter arguments are that you want a larger consensus (rather than the weak one against your wish) and "identity-first language". I am unaware of any policy or guideline that supports this opinion. - SummerPhD^v2.0 20:42, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

6)Your new reason is that "'is gay', not 'has homosexuality'" hinges on the source saying he "was autistic". Instead, the independent reliable source (the New York Times) says specifically that he was diagnosed with autism. Your theory would also require that reliable sources say someone was "diagnosed as homosexual". I'm still waiting for your argument that the person who left was "diagnosed cancerous".

The diagnosis was and is "autism". He was not "diagnosed as being a person with autism". - SummerPhD^v2.0 02:31, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The clear consensus at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles#Diagnosed_.22autistic.22_or_.22with_autism.22 is "with autism". - SummerPhD^v2.0 01:28, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Off-topic sources

This article is about Autism Speaks. All material in the article should be supported by reliable sources. All sources must support the material. If the source does not discuss Autism Speaks, the material is not about Autism Speaks and does not belong here.

If a reliable source says "Autism Speaks believes (whatever)", that material might belong in the article. Stating that "(whatever) is challenged by (whomever)" based on a different source that does not discuss Autism Speaks is WP:SYN: You are attempting to says that (whomever) says Autism Speaks is wrong, a claim not directly supported by either source. - SummerPhD^v2.0 12:51, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

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Lede

The lede on this article is badly in need of a rewrite. Too much history is included and should be its own section. I propose it to be more clearly written as something like this... "Autism Speaks is an autism advocacy organization in the United States that sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activities aimed at families, governments, and the public. It was founded in February 2005 by Bob Wright, vice chairman of General Electric, and his wife Suzanne, a year after their grandson Christian was diagnosed with autism. An Autism Rights advocate named Elizabeth Picciuto accused the organization of treating autism as a disease that needs to be cured, rather than a difference that needs to be understood and accepted." The mention of Picciuto could be removed but I do think that some clear mention of the controversy of this organization needs to be in the lede of this article. Everything else should be in the body of the article. I'm not familiar enough with the controversy to be confident to write it correctly, but support that it should be in the lede.Sgerbic (talk) 05:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Sgerbic. The lede is too wordy. A reference to the article written by Elizabeth Picciuto should be included under the Controversies heading. Boneso (talk) 11:47, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this article should be used, or possibly the story has been picked up by other media sources http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/04/what_we_can_learn_from_william_shatner_s_twitter_meltdown.htmlSgerbic (talk) 20:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to go bold and have a whack at the lede. Very open to discussion if there are better ideas.Sgerbic (talk) 21:13, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

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POV editing

JzG apparently has a strong opinion on this. Unfortunately is shows in their edits.

Rather than flipping to a strong POV on this article, which they consider to be [[15] "more neutral"], we need to slow down a bit and take this one piece at a time.

For the first bit: The organization is "controversial" we are told, which was sourced. The source, however, does not say the organization is controversial. The source says that an actress said that "Some of her autistic fans" said it was controversial "with some". If an actress said that some of her paleo-dieting fans said that bacon is health food, should Wikipedia say that bacon is health food? Clearly not. - SummerPhD^v2.0 13:04, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

• If there's a POV here, it's your persistent whitewashing of it. Not only removing content from the article, but also from the talk pages - way beyond WP:TPO might permit. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Andy Dingley, I removed an off-topic rant three years ago.[16] If you'd like to take it to AN/I, I'd love to discuss the finer points of it with the wild accusations and personal attacks you felt were required in response.[2] Yes, an actress heard from someone that someone else considers the organization to be controversial. The addition to the article did not say that. It restated the author's friend's opinion as a fact. - SummerPhD^v2.0 23:56, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

You've been whitewashing here for nine years, as long as I've seen the article. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:09, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

This page is for discussing improvements to the article. I removed someone's off-topic rant here three years ago and now I am discussing content. Feel free to join the discussion of the content here. If you feel strongly that I am whitewashing the article, I strongly encourage you to take the issue to AN/I. - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:56, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• I don't have a strong POV on this, people with autism do. Autism Speaks has engaged in outright quackery for much of its existence. I cited some of that, and you removed it. Why woudl you rmeove, for example, the fact that they supported the bogus MMR-autism link long after it was debunked? Guy (Help!) 22:28, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

JzG, Perhaps we disagree about what constitutes a "strong opinion". You felt the need to tell me the organization is "a bunch of antivaxers who push abusive pseudoscience". That is your opinion and it seems to me that you feel fairly strongly about it. Your mileage may vary.

You added material. Your POV is not "more neutral", so I reverted you. You restored your opinion with a bad citation, I reverted you again. The normal course of editing is bold, revert, discuss, not "bold, revert, restore, revert, restore, discuss."

I have asked you to partialize, starting with the first piece. That someone, somewhere told an actress something is not encyclopedic in the least. That the person speaking with the author said something does not establish it as true or relevant. That you believe it to be true adds nothing. - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:50, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you are trying to WP:OWN the article. Guy (Help!) 06:59, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you want this to go to AN/I. Sorry, I'm going to take it one issue at a time. I've added a 3RR warning to your talk page. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

That was droll, given that you reverted three times and engaged in argumentum ad hominem and I did not. Guy (Help!) 17:09, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• I think some of the language JzG used should be toned down, but there is a lot of criticism of this group out there. I had to listen to my pediatrician rant about their promotion of antivaxxer claims just a few months ago when I said something (something I got from this article, mind) complimentary about them. I think that some of the controversies do need to be reflected in the lede. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:55, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I am not taking a position on whether the article should say the organization is pure evil, the salvation for all of humankind or somewhere in between. I am saying the article should reflect what independent reliable sources say about the topic. What any individual editor thinks of the group[17] is not relevant here. Neither is your pediatrician's opinion, should she decide to edit this article. We also should not be particularly interested in an actress's friends' friends opinions either.

Independent reliable sources tell us whether someone is a white supremacist, a film was hated by critics but loved by fans, etc. They can also be counted on to tell us whether a group is widely considered to be "controversial". Blogs and fourth hand reports about the opinions of a couple of anonymous people are not significant. - SummerPhD^v2.0 03:08, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

"Controversial"

We do not have a source saying Autism Speaks is a "controversial organization", such that it would be identified as such in the first sentence. Currently, this is sourced to an actress saying that "Some of her autistic fans quickly interceded. They told her that Autism Speaks was controversial, even hated, within some segments of the self-advocate community..." While no one has yet explained how this fourth hand opinion merits inclusion, to be accurate, rather than saying it is a "controversial organization", we should say that "according to an actress, some of her anonymous fans say that some of their friends say the organization is controversial".

If you feel that is material for the identifying statement, we'd certainly need to label every medical organization and treatment as "controversial", given that there are people who dispute everything. A spherical Earth? That's a "controversial" idea. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes we do. More than one, actually, it's also included in some of the other sources. Guy (Help!) 17:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Honestly. When I wrote that we had one source saying that an actress's friends' friends said it was controversial. That was the only source. It was and remains an absurd source for such a sweeping claim and should be removed.

The sources you have added now are, IMO, sufficient to say it is controversial. It does not belong in the lead sentence, however. We can easily find two sources that state that The Wizard of Oz is the subject of an urban legend connecting it to Dark Side of the Moon. We do not, however, put that in the lead sentence because the overwhelming majority of sources do not call it "...a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer thought to be connected to Dark Side of the Moon." The overwhelming majority of reliable sources -- such as those currently in the article do not describe the organization as "controversial". Your current standard would have us list every president of the United States as controversial in the lead sentence, along with Elvis Presley, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Target, Pink Floyd, NASA, guns, God, organic farming, etc. - SummerPhD^v2.0 18:54, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Tornado chaser has now removed the source citing an actress's friends' friends. Is this acceptable to you JzG?

The overwhelming majority of reliable sources -- such as those currently in the article do not describe the organization as "controversial". - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:56, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

As there has been no further discussion, I ma removing the contentious label from the lead. The "Controversies" section remains. - SummerPhD^v2.0 15:34, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

"Autism activists...criticize Autism Speaks"

The source cited does not say anything of the sort. Rather, it discusses those who do not want a "cure" for autism, then it says Autism Speaks has clashed with other organizations on funding priorities and that "activists" are trying to hijack a hashtag to criticize the organization. As written, we've converted an unknown number of "activists" trying to take over a hashtag to the universal "autism activists", who have a unified goal and all criticize the organization.

Previously, this section used the vague but more accurate "some autism activists...have criticized", also poorly sourced to the vague claim that some tried to take over a hashtag. You're creating a movement out of a hashtag.

The organization's response was excised without explanation. In it's place, we're treated to simply that they dropped the word "cure", then we go back to rehash that they "supported research into the discredited theory". We cite a statement by a resigning director. Singer resigned from the board of an organization and started a competing organization. If you think that makes her an independent reliable source, you are mistaken. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

There are multiple cited sources to support the entirely factual claim that many autism advocates are critical of Autism Speaks and its "cure" narrative. See also https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/speaking-out-against-autism-speaks-even-if-it-means-no-ice-cream/, https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/11/13/why-autism-speaks-doesnt-speak-for-me/, even former staff http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-resign-my-roles-at-autism-speaks.html. This criticism is a fact, I have no particular position on its validity, but I do have a position on suppressing it in the article. Guy (Help!) 17:06, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Please slow down and discuss what I am actually saying, rather than what you fear someone might say. I have not said we should "suppress" anything. I am questioning the wording.

"Autism activists" is a very broad term that actually would include those working with and for Autism Speaks. I rather doubt you intend to say that those raising money for and employed by Autism Speaks criticize Autism speaks.

The {{who}} maintenance tag you removed is for "After passages mentioning general groups (such as "many scientists") that could be made more specific by naming (and citing sources for) specific individuals." The modifier you removed -- "Some" -- while imprecise and part of the same problem is better than the sweeping phrase you are defending.

Incidentally, please do not remove maintenance tags merely because you feel they are inappropriate in your article. - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:08, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

What you are saying is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I hear it loud and clear. Guy (Help!) 08:50, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

No, you seem to either not understand or not care that you are misrepresenting what the sources say. - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:54, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

The organizations response was cited only to Autism Speaks itself, and is likely WP:UNDUE if no secondary sources can be found talking about this, although the edit summary was misleading and uninformative, I ultimately agree with removing this.

I did restore the word "some"[18], as this makes clear that treating autism as a disease is not opposed by all autism activists. Tornado chaser (talk) 13:11, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Even Autism Speaks now seem to have dropped any claim that it's a disease, and with it support for biomedical interventions. The core problem with AS, and the reason that many advocates dislike them so much, is that their sponsorship of biomed interventions has lent a spurious legitimacy to a lot of quackery. Guy (Help!) 15:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

IDONTLIKE using Wikipedia's voice to make claims unsupported by reliable sources. You don't like Autism Speaks. "Some" is not perfect, but removing it made the article worse not better. - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:34, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

"It has been characterized"

Yes, it has, in someone's blog. This is a self-published source. The blogger is allowed to say whatever they'd like in their blog, but not here. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

This blog sourced material was removed by another editor. Is that acceptable to you, JzG? - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:57, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Clarify Light It Up Blue

Footnote 35: "Light It Up Blue was not created or owned by Autism speaks, although they have driven awareness of the initiative across the US" However, I could not find this in the citation given and I also couldn't find anything to back it up. Light It Up Blue is controversial mainly due to its association with Autism Speaks. Could it be confirmed whether it was actually created or owned by them? Do they currently own it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.76.163.6 (talk) 09:40, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

It says on the Autism Speaks website that they did create Light it Up Blue https://www.autismspeaks.org/world-autism-month-faq72.76.163.6 (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2020

Under "Controversies", please add the following:

Judge Rotenberg Center

Autism Speaks has invited the Judge Rotenberg Center to their resource fair, where they were presented as a resource provider for autistic people and their families. The Judge Rotenberg Center has been condemned for torture by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture for its abusive treatment of autistic people. --66.244.121.212 (talk) 03:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done, not that noteworty of an event. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 04:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Not noteworthy? Did you even read the article on the Judge Rotenberg Center? --66.244.121.212 (talk) 04:59, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

See WP:PROPORTION. As far as I can discern, nothing more happened after the post at autistichoya.com (which is a self-published source), and therefore isn't that big of a deal to be noted here. Did the event leave any sort of discernable impact aside from someone getting angry online? Did any of the two organizations, or a notable third party, make any response towards the post? Is there any sort of backlash directly caused by the Judge Rothenberg Center being at the fair, supported by reliable sources? The two sentences above may be true, but their inclusion would imply a bigger connection between the two organizations than actually supported by reliable sources and therefore an unproportionate negative bias. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 13:10, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Ganbaruby: Sorry for the late reply. Three more sources for the connection between Autism Speaks and the Judge Rotenberg Center. Autism Speaks also hired a member of the JRC's board of directors as a consultant. As you will see from the sources, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network cited Autism Speaks' association with the JRC as reason for condemning them. So yes, a notable third party did get involved. --66.244.121.212 (talk) 00:16, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Per the discussion in this section, it appears that there isn't a consensus for this to be added. Please gain consensus before re-opening the edit request. Seagull123 Φ 09:27, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 13 September 2020

Retitle the "Controversies" section to "Criticisms and controversies" (or visa versa) as many things included aren't strictly controversies. 109.79.60.153 (talk) 13:11, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Per WP:CSECTION, "Controversy" is a less-loaded term since each of the incidents described had people on each side. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:21, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2020

The link within the article does not prove that Wubbzy from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! is the mascot of the organization Autism Speaks. It either needs the link to go through the Wayback machine or deletion of the entire sentence. WolfgangThomas64 (talk) 18:17, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done I have updated the ref to point to an archived version captured by and stored in the Wayback machine. – robertsky (talk) 19:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2021

Please add information about Autism Acceptance Month and the “Light It Up Red” movement. 69.74.139.165 (talk) 13:26, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ _Talk 15:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Article Quality

This article has multiple issues. I am coming in knowing very little about the organization, but the article is overwhelmingly hostile to the subject, potentially violating neutral point of view. The criticism may well be valid, but better sourcing and context is needed throughout to support criticism lodged at the organization.

• In the lead, the "autism rights movement" and "neurodiversity" movements are highlighted as opposing the organization. Better context is needed for their criticism; is it mainstream medical consensus that Autism is a "difference" and that a "cure" should not be sought?

• The history section reads like a trivia section full of unrelated facts with no assertion of notability. "Disability Scoop claimed this was a sharp decrease in revenue". What is the significance of this claim? "In 2018, Autism Speaks took in over $60 million in funding. However, grant money decreased by $3.1 million." That 3.1 million decrease is compared to what?

• The "Rhetoric used" section does not discuss rhetoric. It primary discusses a single scene in a movie. It also discusses an op-ed written by the founder, but never discusses the content of the op-ed, only the criticism against it. What exactly do critics dispute, and was the op-ed representative of other materials published by the organization.

• In the "views" section the article is unclear whether mainstream medicine views autism as a disease. Thus, is the view of Autism activists targeted against the mainstream medicine view, or against the particular views advocated by Autism speaks?

• Regarding "Position on Vaccines", exactly what research was given high priority? How long was this research funded? Is it currently funded? Was any of it published in reputable journals? Did any notable researchers directly rebut the research? What scientifically valid results, if any, were found? The section currently focuses only on activist responses. –Zfish118^⋉talk 16:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

RfC: identity of the organisation

Should the lead, per MOS:LEAD, delineate Autism Speaks as an "autism research organization", an "autism advocacy organization", or something else? What about the short description, and the infobox? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 17:22, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

This is possibly a premature RfC, but – why not both? That is, an "autism research and advocacy organization"? The Activities section describes them doing both, so an accurate summary of the article would be to also describe them as doing both, no? It might not mesh well with the "largest in the united states" bit, but that can probably be moved to another sentence in the lead instead. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 18:15, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, maybe they no longer put that they're searching for a "cure" in their mission statement, but without strong evidence that they've reformed through and through so that it no longer relates to their practices or research, I don't see how you could call them an "autism advocacy organization" any more than you can call a conversion therapy group a "gay advocacy organization"—and even then for historical context we might want to say "originally founded with the aim of 'curing' autism". — Bilorv (talk) 20:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

That's not really a fair comparison..I understand the reasoning behind it, but..speaking as someone who both...not autistic per se (perhaps to some minimal degree), but having other cognitive/functional diagnoses (ADD primarily, to an extreme level), and is not hetero: the one is just a matter of who you're physically attracted to, the other does truly hamper daily functioning. Firejuggler86 (talk) 20:15, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment per lead it should summerise what the body says. Autism Speaks is an autism organization that, along with its predecessor organizations, has been a source of funding for research into the causes and treatment of autism spectrum disorders; it also conducts awareness and outreach activities aimed at families, governments and the public. So basically what the lead says now is fine. Aircorn (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

The issue is not that autism hampers daily functioning, as a non binary person I could easily say being enby hampers my daily functioning because of the lack of understanding and accommodation for those that don’t fit into the binary. Similarly, autistic people aren’t broken and need to be cured, the issue is that neurotypical people will not put in effort to make spaces accommodating. The point is that an advocacy group would be advocating for a world that cared them and tried to make the world a less hostile place, not trying to cure them and focusing on parents talking about how hard it is for them. I’d not be surprised if the group encouraged parents to stop their kids from stimming tho in all honesty that’s speculation. It’s a well known thing amongst the neurodivergent community that AS isn’t well liked by people that actually are autistic and the way that the page isn’t prominently addressing that is something of an oversight imo.

• Comment Those wanting a good summary of why people don't like AS might do well to read John Elder Robison's resignation (which is referenced in the article). Specifically, this part: Autism Speaks says it’s the advocacy group for people with autism and their families. It’s not, despite having had many chances to become that voice. Autism Speaks is the only major medical or mental health nonprofit whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a large percentage of the people affected by the condition they target. [...] No one says the Cancer Society does not speak for them. No one describes the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as an evil organization. All that and more is said of Autism Speaks every day. I’ve tried to be a voice of moderation but it hasn’t worked. I'd be inclined to agree with Bilorv on this one: it doesn't seem reasonable to describe something as an "advocacy organization" for a group when people from that group are primarily known to say it doesn't represent them. jp×g 19:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

We should be going by what neutral, reliable sources say, not by our own opinions about Autism Speaks. A number of reliable sources call Autism Speaks an advocacy organization. For example, the source at the end of the lead sentence says explicitly that Autism Speaks is an advocacy organization. We shouldn't be ignoring those sources because we hate the organization. A controversial organization can still be an advocacy organization. CatPath ^{meow at me} 09:40, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@CatPath: In this context, the most reliable source is the autistic community. The autistic community gets to decide whether or not Autism Speaks is an advocacy group, not some third party. Plus, it's arguably more neutral to describe it as a research organization. Advocacy is a positive term, research is neutral. And it's more accurate. If we're going to keep in the word "advocacy", we should add that it's controversial too-- in the first sentence. Many people don't read past that and it's important enough information to include there if we're going to call it an advocacy organization. --Queenofconfusion (talk) 18:08, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Queenofconfusion:: The article is about Autism Speaks, not the autistic community. Regardless, we should use what neutral, reliable sources say. Therefore, the third party in this case is the autistic community. The source used here is a scholarly secondary source from a prominent scientific journal, which according to Wikipedia's guidelines is one of the most reliable sources you can have. A number of articles from well-known news outlets also call Autism Speaks an advocacy organization, or even a "controversial" advocacy organization, but still an advocacy organization. CatPath ^{meow at me} 21:53, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

To state it more clearly, in the eyes of Wikipedia, the autistic community is not the most reliable source for deciding whether AS is an advocacy group, as disagreeable as that may sound. "Advocacy" may be positive term, but it's a term that many reliable sources use to describe Autism Speaks. Your suggestion of calling AS a "controversial advocacy group" may be the way to go since I've seen reliable sources use that exact same wording. CatPath ^{meow at me} 01:19, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@CatPath: I'm going to put it as "Autism Speaks Inc. (AS) is a controversial autism advocacy organization and the largest autism research organization in the United States" if that's okay. I'm just phrasing it like that because I don't know how to phrase it so that we can still include that it's the largest. It is a research organization, after all. Feel free to revert my change and discuss if there are any problems with that. Queenofconfusion (talk) 03:25, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Queenofconfusion:: I think your wording is fine. Thank you for working with me on this sentence. CatPath ^{meow at me} 23:25, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect assertion within the article that autism being a disease is a mainstream medical view

This article states that "Autism Speaks' advocacy has been based on the mainstream medical view of autism as a disease". This is incorrect. The mainstream medical view of autism is that it is a lifelong neurodiverse condition. Whilst individuals can learn coping mechanisms to help them deal with the challenges they face as an autistic person, they will still be autistic throughout their lives.

Whilst a view does exist that Autism is a disease, it is not mainstream, it is a view on the periphery that has been adopted by this charity. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that autism is "a diverse group of conditions" caused by many factors including environmental and genetic factors. The wording "the mainstream medical view of autism as a disease" should be removed. Whilst it is not removed Wikipedia is providing a platform for an incorrect ascertion (fake information) that is damaging to the autistic community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boris the Flea (talk • contribs) 20:20, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

The first three citations in the article ([7][8][9]) do not support the lead assertions of controversy or scale

"Autism Speaks Inc. (AS) is a controversial autism advocacy organization and the largest autism research organization in the United States.[7][8][9]" Is the lead sentence of this article with three sources cited. None of the citations support the assertions that Autism Speaks is controversial or the largest autism research organization in the United States.

[7] This source (Singh J, Hallmayer J, Illes J (2007)) makes no mention of controversy over Autism Speaks nor does it assert that Autism Speaks is the largest autism research organization in the United States.

[8] This source (Newsweek (2021)) is a rehash of Twitter drama regarding a partnership with Google, the only fact asserted in the article. Since all reference to controversy is made from selected tweets from unknown individuals this source violates WP:RS#User-generated_content, nor does it assert that Autism Speaks is the largest autism research organization in the United States.

[9] This source ("Charity Navigator" (undated)) is a blatant violation of WP:RS#Questionable_content and WP:RS#User-generated_content. Moreover, it also makes no mention whatsoever of controversy involving Autism Speaks nor does it assert that Autism Speaks is the largest autism research organization in the United States. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:189:8201:B000:F5C3:EC75:AF76:F77B (talk) 01:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the assertion is unsupported by the cites, though I disagree with your interpretation of what counts as user-generated content regarding the Newsweek one, given the article itself isn't user-generated. Nevertheless this article seems to mention several instances of controversy regarding the organization which I think could be mentioned in the lead, still definitely not in the first sentence as it's currently written. I'm going to check how controversial the org is portrayed as being in sources before I make any changes. XeCyranium (talk) 02:32, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Autismspeaks is hurtful to the autistic community.

This organisation should not be considered an advocacy group. It has previously aimed to find a 'cure' for autism when there is no cure because autism is not a disease. Many autistic people find it very hurtful because of this and other past actions. It would be beneficial if some editing was allowed in order to make the average reader aware of the opposition movements against it, and the general feeling against it within the autistic community. WEEEZUS (talk) 15:37, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Frank Ludwig has some relevant articles:

• How Autism Speaks Hijacked World Autism Awareness Day
• Why Autism Speaks Disabled the Review Option on their Facebook Page
• The Autism Gravy Train — The Big Business with Autism (likely in combination with Pathologising Autism)

— Lee Carré (talk) 10:14, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

When discussing whether or not something is a disease the sources should be WP:MEDRS compliant, otherwise the article runs the risk of parroting poorly researched information. XeCyranium (talk) 02:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Definitely agree with this statement. Autism speaks is a charity for a cure for autism, if which there is none. Mamabear242 (talk) 10:19, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

No "criticism" or "reception" section?

The organization has received a lot of criticism for its positions, including from people on the autism spectrum. However, the article does not appear to cover that at all, beyond one or two sentences on response to specific activities. Whether you agree with this criticism or not, this coverage is definitely more than notable enough to warrant its own section. 87.129.180.234 (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

There needs to be a controversy section

these guys are pure evil i tell you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.30.52.72 (talk) 00:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

They moved their headquarters

I was just on their website and it says they're based at 1060 State Road Princeton NJ not NYC — Preceding unsigned comment added by SirColdcrown (talk • contribs) 19:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Accusations of being a hate group

Autism Speaks has had accusations of being a hate group by autistics. Autism Speaks often talks about autistics in a way that makes them feel devalued.

Alison Singer Pronouns

The article uses "he" pronouns for Alison Singer at one point, who according to the source uses she/her pronouns 80.1.114.106 (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I couldn't find a spot where Singer was referenced as "he". My search for " he " showed three matches, all referring to other people. _signed, Willondon (talk) 22:33, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. Let us know if there are any other instances. Politanvm ^talk 04:21, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 April 2022

change "In 2018, Autism Speaks spent $19.6 million on employee benefits. Angela Geiger, the current president, earned more than $642,000, which was more than double the earnings of any other AS executive.[26]" to "In 2018, Autism Speaks spent $19.6 million on employee benefits. Angela Geiger, the current president, made more than $642,000, which was more than double the amount made by any other AS executive.[26]" Username69420666666 (talk) 01:24, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: "double the earnings" is what the source says. RudolfRed (talk) 01:34, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

they didn't earn any of that Username69420666666 (talk) 16:27, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Tell it to the source. _signed, Willondon (talk) 18:24, 23 April 2022 (UTC)