Talk:Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle

Additional potential sources
Listing additional potential sources, above. -- Cirt (talk) 20:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Prevalence in news
Prevalent in the news under multiple different searches: -- Cirt (talk) 20:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 1)
 * 2)
 * 3)
 * 4)

Thoughts on newsworthiness
My sense (thus far) is that the newsworthiness difficulty has been one of presentation.
 * Excerpt from WN:Content guide: News stories focus on a recent single current event or phenomenon.
 * The focus here, as I understand it, is that the neologism is prominent in voters' minds in the election cycle.
 * The headline and lede don't altogether bring out the voters/election aspect of things. It seems possible this might be achievable with remarkably few words added.
 * As the central focus of the article, it has to be backed up, somewhat, later in the article; one can't have an inverted pyramid with only the base (lede) and tip (background) without a middle section of the pyramid. Right now, it doesn't seem the rest of the article would back up that focus.  The only details I've noticed mentioned, after the lede, that are within three days are Santorum saying something against same-sex partnership (relevant background, but doesn't speak to voter awareness of the neologism), and the interview with Savage (also doesn't speak to voter awareness).
 * Of course there's the whole two-independent-sources thing.

--Pi zero (talk) 21:07, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: I'm not making any claims about what is or isn't covered by existing sources, just intending not to let the sourcing issue slip out of visibility.  --Pi zero (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Responses to above suggestions

Thank you very much for these specific suggestions, they were quite helpful. I've made several changes in response to the above recommendations: Again, thanks so much for these helpful pointers. This helps greatly to shift the central focus of the article, and back it up with multiple different independent sources. :) -- Cirt (talk) 22:21, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) I've moved the page to a new title, "Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle", from its original, "Santorum neologism still prevalent after nine years". This directly incorporates the suggestion from the 2nd point by Pi zero, above. diff.
 * 2) Per advice above from Pi zero, I've tweaked the lede/intro to provide more focus on the fact that the neologism is prominent in voters' minds in the election cycle. diff.
 * 3) I've added additional sources to supplement the prior sources, to back up the central focus of the article on the topic suggested by Pi zero. This included sources ' diff, ' diff, and  diff diff diff.

Link description
Regarding diff, no worries, I'm happy to defer here to the judgment of. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Stevertigo's notes: Why this article lacks quality
-Steverti (talk) 05:53, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) "{LGBT}" Why the LGBT tag? To put this subject strictly within the context of LGBT issues, is to promote the slur/neologism as put for by a homosexual activist. This topic just as much falls under the topic of slander/defamation, doesn't it? Why isn't there a slander/defamation template?
 * 2) "A coined in  's column  in response to comments made by former Pennsylvania Senator  about  has gained prominence during the  in the United States." - This sentence is too wordy. I understand that the author's premise is that the slur/neologism has "gained prominence." My suggestion is that this is not actually true, or else misstated. Has the author actually shown that the slur/neologism has "gained prominence" simply because more people have been Googling Santorum's name? That is clearly the author's premise, but the author does not actually support this in any way except to loosely cite a couple news articles. More to the point, the author(s) appear to use the word "prominence," both in the title and the lede, as code for "legitimacy." They appear to be doing the opposite of what real journalists actually do, in stating that the neologism/slur is somehow legitimized by either Santorum's rise or Google's principled defense of the Google bomb. In short the prominent usage of the word "prominence," along with the LGBT tag, and the defamatory painting, must all really just be reflective of the author's bias.
 * 3) "After Santorum spoke out against in 2003, readers of Savage’s column voted to define the word "" as "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."" - "Santorum" (lower case) is an actual word, meaning something related to a sanctified ritual. So, the proper verb here might be [readers voted to] "redefine" [the word].
 * 4) "The prominence of this term's association with Santorum, a current candidate for the, has had an impact on the former Senator's ." - Is there a source for this? Santorum won three primaries yesterday, perhaps the slur/neologism hasn't been having that much of an effect at all.
 * 5) The article quotes gay activist Dan Savage "It is vile, as are Santorum's comments about gay people." and features his quote prominently. Santorum's comments are not featured prominently. This again points to a bias with the author(s).
 * 6) The article also includes an image titled "File:Still Life with Rick Santorum, Lube, Dildo, and Justin Bieber doll.jpg|thumb|left|Artwork inspired by the phenomenon. Attributed to someone named "bijijoo."
 * 7) " strategists poised themselves to take advantage of Santorum's association with the neologism phenomenon." - The word "phenomenon" here appears to have superlative connotations. Using superlatives is a clear example of bias.
 * 8) "Based on sources among Democratic operatives, Jack Cahill of  reports Democratic tactics in Missouri involve actually galvanizing support for Santorum ahead of that state's in order to eliminate the possibility of a Mitt Romney win. Cahill says they view Santorum as mostly a dirty joke's punchline." - How does this actually relate to the slur/neologism/Googlebomb?
 * 9) "The [Wikinews] investigation noted that: "An [ edit] to an article about a controversy over Senator Rick Santorum's statements about Constitutional rights to privacy with regards to sexual acts, seemingly coming from Rick Santorum's staff members, removed a reference to an effort to redefine Santorum's last name as a neologism." - This is old news. How does mentioning it here support the article's premise of a "prominent" "phenomenon"?
 * 10) "In a 2003 interview with the, Rick Santorum compared legalizing to supporting . Readers of the  advice column selected a new definition for the Senator’s last name, and Savage created a website www.spreadingsantorum.com to document the spread of the phenomenon. The term became a prominent result in searches online, and gained dominance on  including , , and ."
 * 11) "Google global communications chief Gabriel Stricker commented to  in an interview this January, that the company was avoiding editorial judgment, and that the prominence of the santorum neologism phenomenon in web searches is due to increased interest in the subject. Stricker stated, "There definitely are people who are finding this to be the best answer to their question, and they are indicating this by either clicking on this result or linking to this result as the best answer to that question."
 * 12) "In the wake of Santorum's showing in the, additional curious people looked up the former Senator on the Internet and in turn discovered the santorum neologism phenomenon."
 * 13) "After journalist of the National Public Radio program  received criticism for covering the increased attention to the santorum neologism, she explained why the issue was relevant: "I felt it was an important and legitimate story in the wake of Mr. Santorum's success in Iowa. Although the site had been up for many years, it was only after Mr. Santorum's success in the caucuses that a large number of people were actually searching for more information about him." - Searching "for more information about him" does not mean that the slur itself has been receiving increased validation - only Google regards a click on a link to be a validation of the neologism/slur.
 * 14) " provided a similar analysis in January &mdash; that more coverage of Santorum has led to more coverage of the neologism." - More detail - what did this paper actually say about the subject?
 * 15) "Rick Santorum himself has acknowledged and discussed the existence and prevalence of the santorum neologism phenomenon, in comments to the press." - To Santorum, its not a "phenomenon" its just a prank, and his comments on the subject do not "acknowlege[]" the "prevalence" of the subject - the word "prevalence" implies that the slur has some legitimacy.
 * 16) "Santorum tried to alleviate the neologism's results in web searches by reaching out to in September, but this act only served to increase reporting and coverage of the phenomenon." - This assertion doesn't have a source and appears to be editorializing.


 * Most of the items on that list &mdash;and, indeed, the overall shape of the list&mdash; are mainly evidence of lack of understanding of the nature of Wikinews. That's perfectly understandable; we all start out as newbies.  The first thing to keep in mind is that Wikinews is not Wikipedia.  A page that may be useful to you is For Wikipedians; we're always looking for ways to improve that page, as it doesn't prevent as many cross-cultural misunderstandings by Wikipedians as we could wish.  Your list doesn't show evidence of understanding the mutually related (and, ultimately, deep) Wikinews concepts of news, review, and archiving, and their implications.  Note, btw, that we are a highly collaborative project, with our greatest successes coming from a deeply rewarding interaction between author(s) and reviewer(s), working in very different roles on any given article toward the shared goal of producing high quality news.  --Pi zero (talk) 14:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree here with the judgment in this analysis of comment by admin Pi zero. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 15:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)