Talk:Project On Government Oversight

IP question

Is POGO at 70.17.82.112 editing it's own article? Dominick ^(TALK) 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

This article needs a Criticism section, as it currently reads like a it was written by POGO. It makes it seems as if POGO is unbiased and infalible in its critiques of the government, which no organization/person is. Also, we need to know how nmany jobs were lost because of hysteria caused by POGO, and how many criticisms turned out to be baseless or erroneous. - BillCJ (talk) 19:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Pruning notice - 7 days

Deleted redundant, self-serving hype. Also deadlinked 27 broken links. This linkfarm has to be massively pruned. WP:LINKFARM WP:NOTDIR. In 7 days, I'm going to start pruning, unless 3rd party sources start appearing en masse, or I forget. --Lexein (talk) 17:44, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Followup. Third party sources did appear, so I didn't prune. I was referring mostly to the list of links at start of sections; there's been no feedback from other editors. Let's get a broader consensus before major changes to the article. When I asked at IRC #en-wikipedia-help - several longtime editors opined "meh." --Lexein (talk) 16:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of interest nudge

User:Mcqrunner35 works for POGO, per this edit comment. Note WP:COI. --Lexein (talk) 18:46, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: editors who work for POGO are welcome (there are benefits to declaring) - just read and follow WP policies and guidelines including WP:COI, WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV, WP:PEACOCK, WP:PUFFERY, etc. --Lexein (talk) 18:12, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Revisions

I just fixed all the dead links by either deleting them or updating them. The next step should be to get some third party references going on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfreegov (talk • contribs) 20:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

References Section

I'm new to wikipedia, how to I make a references section properly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfreegov (talk • contribs) 13:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you got the hang of it.

• Include authors, if available. See WP:CITE.
• See WP:VERIFY - blogs are generally considered less reliable: tnr.com/blog/* and blogs.federaltimes.gov/* If in doubt about a source, there's the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome to WP.--Lexein (talk) 18:51, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Notable history

The article is pro-POGO POV. Click on WP:NPOV The 1998 Congressional investigation and 2003 Federal lawsuit are the only existing balancing elements about this organization. I initially felt that Methods was the appropriate section, because it stemmed from an early, if misguided effort to compensate whisteblowers.

It is typical in WP articles to present history before operational details of an organization, so I'm moving the section up the article under History.

I recommend adding additional notable organization history in this section, such as notable staff, notable funding sources, notable lawsuits won. This article needs historical substance. Discuss. --Lexein (talk) 19:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

There is some historical substance throughout the article under the various "program area" sections. Would it be better to create a "history" section at the top and put all those things, along with the lawsuit info, together in that section? 70.108.30.211 (talk) 13:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

My vote is the program area stuff seems fine where it is. The article needs depth in the form of plain unvarnished history about the organization itself, as noted. Say, notable spinoffs, or integration of other groups, and again, notable funding sources, maybe even notable losses. Just thinking. --Lexein (talk) 14:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Whistleblower award incident

Add material, but do not delete material with reliably-sourced 3rd party citations without discussion or stating a violated Wikipedia policy. The vacating part is good, I hadn't seen that. I am reverting the other recent changes, pending discussion here. The material isn't gone, it's in the history and can be cut/pasted back in. You may rename sections to other neutral names, but not as you did. Please read Wikipedia policies about article WP:TONE, WP:UNDUE, WP:5PILLARS. And WP:Welcome to Wikipedia! --Lexein (talk) 21:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Second request for discussion. See WP:BURDEN, WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:BATTLEGROUND. --Lexein (talk) 04:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The whistleblower award "incident" is a highly biased version of the events leading to the Court of Appeals decision vacating the Distrcit Court's verdict. The sources cited are Republican Committee reports that were heavily influenced by former Senator Frank Murkowski and Rep. Don Young (who at the time was Chairman of the House Resources Committee). Their anti-POGO work was performed at the behest of the oil industry which was angered at POGO's work highlighting the unbderreporting of oil royalty payments for oil taken from Federal land. Despite your citation of Paul Thompson's work (Thompson was a detailee from GAO to the Young Committee in 2000), his work was heavily influenced by his friendship with a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. It is not a credible source, and GAO would not back the report.

The fact is that POGO sued the oil companies in a False Claims Act case and recovered $440 million on behalf of American taxpayers for underpayment of royalties. The oil industry, through the American Petroleum Institute, struck back at POGO through the political process and made POGO's sharing of a portion of the award POGO received (about $1.2 million) with one of the whistleblowers, the crux of their investigation. The Justice Department, under John Ashcroft, reversed a Clinton Administration decision not to sue POGO (because they determined there was no violation of law) and began a long legal saga on an unusually arcane point -- whether POGO's sharing of the award with the Federal employee whistleblower constituted a salary supplementation. Hopefully, yesterday's DC Circuit decision to put this issue to rest.

BTW, I do not work for POGO, have never received a dime from POGO, and have no partisan stake in this fight. I am a govt legal ethics expert, and what was done to POGO by Young, Murkowski and DOJ, was unconscionable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Govconmaven (talk • contribs) 23:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

0. I propose that it will be best to number points for discussion, for easy reference.

1. "Discuss" does not then mean "discuss, then revert." It means "discuss without making any further changes without consensus." I have reverted out your edits _only_ because sources are not cited, and because you removed claims which were sourced, and their sources.

2. We're going to keep this in talk until this is ironed out. This means cooling down, understanding and assuming good faith on both sides (and this _is_ a tough one). Try to keep points concise and neutral. We're going to revise, sentence by sentence, here in talk until compromise is reached. You seem to be a new Wikipedia editor, perhaps unfamiliar with how things are done here, policy- and guideline-wise. That's why I suggested reading the linked policies above.

3. You haven't cited sources (about Clinton policy, Ashcroft reversal, etc.) That's super important, I can't state it with enough emphasis: we, as editors, must cite sources. Including sources for every claim you've made above. You got 'em? Bring 'em! I'm earnestly serious about writing a balanced, concise article section about a period in POGO's history in which they did, admittedly, compensate government employees, and even though their intentions were good, broke the law, and went so far as to pledge not to compensate gov't employees in the future - these facts are in evidence, whether or not Big Oil influenced anything.

4. POGO and its PR people have not disputed any of the claims made in the section, only you have done that. Please consider that while making your points and whether POGO agrees with you.

4a. POGO renamed the section "Whistleblower Reward Incident" which is a valid, non-biased description of events.

5. The POGO article to date had only history from POGO's viewpoint, not from any outside sources. That there is a law prohibiting supplementing government official's income is not in dispute, and that POGO broke it by paying, is verifiable. That POGO was justified in appealing based on improper jury instruction is also verifiable. The result does not imply POGO's innocence, or persecution, only that they did not have a fair trial.

6. The initial report was indeed itself biased, as evidenced by my use of the word "alleged" in the article, and by the documentation of its disputed nature in committee. BUT the facts of a) the report's existence, and b) the committee's internal dispute over it, are verifiable. To restate: the mere reporting of the existence of the report cannot be blanketly deemed bias, and the reporting of the fact that it was internally disputed subtracts any color of bias from the reporting of its existence. Now: if you have a 3rd party published reliable source WP:RS(click the link) on oil influence, or Republican plank or talking-point biases, as specifically applicable to the report or the internal committee's dispute, please add those sources.

6a. Although a reading of the cited report and the committee dispute clearly show the report's bias, at that point in the article would be a good place to put a concise WP:RS word about the report's bias.

Example: "resulted in a biased<ref>bias source</ref> report<ref>report source</ref>"

I was trying to avoid blathering on about bias, but to let the report and dispute speak for themselves. However, it is not appropriate to simply remove all evidence of the report - it exists, warts and all.

7. The fact of POGO's refusal to hand over phone records, and the fact of the Contempt threat, have been reported in RS. If you have RS disputing those facts, cite them. All Wikipedia can do is report reliably sourced facts, providing only encyclopedic summaries available of those sources.

8. Wikipedia is not a PR outlet for any political entity. Not POGO, not Big Oil, not Republicans, not Democrats. Here's my take: POGO had a right to sue Big Oil, and a right to express gratitude for the whistleblowers' work, but no legal right to pay government employees. POGO had the right to appeal the trial result based on over-restrictive jury instruction. I have no problem with any of it. Assume good faith on my part.

9. I have no problem reporting the entire incident, beginning to end, but we must use only reliable sources being cited for each claim made.

--Lexein (talk) 02:10, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I can give a third opinion on this. Lexein is more or less right on this one. No reliable sources at all have been cited to back up any of the claims listed above. All we can do here is represent what the sources state - and in this case, this article is pretty well sourced. Further, in this set of edits, sources were removed in order to push a point of view, which really isn't right. In terms of POV, I mean changing the header to "Oil Industry Tries to Pressure the Government to Attack POGO". That's not neutral at all. And the tompaine.com article that was given doesn't have the text to back up the claim that "the threats did not come to fruition as the neither Murkowski nor Young could muster the votes necessary for a contempt citation against POGO." But there are sources to back up all the claims in this article, so I think it should stand as is. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 03:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyedited. Explicitly mentioned the lack of votes, which was in the cited source anyways. Note change in tone - check diff. I'm uneasy about "under Bush" - it's factual, but can be interpreted as partisan and provocative, which is why I left it out at first. Also included the Tom Paine opinion piece as opinion, since it doesn't cite sources. Wish it did. --Lexein (talk) 16:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

MOS issues

There seems to be a huge number of external links in the body of the article. Also is the "Reports" section really necessary? Anyways, I know this is a very low traffic article I am too lazy/unskilled to clean it up so....--Threeafterthree (talk) 01:57, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I have been on the fence about the ext links for a long time (see above), in terms of WP:LINKFARM. I'd like opinions from other editors about the A) links at start of sections, and B) links vs footnotes in the Reports section. Per WP:RS, reports which have been discussed by reliable ext. sources definitely have a place. It's been tough to locate sources which use specific report names. ---Lexein (talk) 16:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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Cleaning up Program Areas section

The Program Areas section is far too long and much of it is simply a list of general topics the organization has worked on. I am currently working on rewriting the section and only keeping notable projects that have third-party sourcing. In general, this page needs more third-party sources, so I'm also working on that. Happy to hear any suggestions anyone has to improve this page. Lenoresm (talk) 16:09, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120605111626/http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030 to http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030
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