Talk:Chad Griffin

Politically Contention Figure Warning

Following Mr. Griffin's connection to the HRC endorsement of Hillary Clinton this page may soon be the target of "motivated editing" from supporters of pretty much all of the current Democratic Presidential candidates. Would it be wise to apply a soft lock to the article to help reduce the damage? 68.232.6.9 (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a standing policy of Wikipedia that article protection not be used preemptively. If you look at the guidance for administrators at Wikipedia:Protection_policy you'll see this mentioned, and that policy is taken very seriously. We try, to every reasonable extent possible, to allow anyone to try and constructively contribute. --joe decker^talk 03:14, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Ways this can/should be improved

A few things I know are weak here.

• First, the text is choppy and poorly organized. The back and forth between education and the Clinton campaign confuses that a bit, but i's probably possible to make things more coherent.
• This may be oversourced (maybe not), but I suspect it would be easier to finish expanding it before trimming (if necessary) any references. I think that will be easier.
• Need to add the work he's done for Rob Reiner and have a coherent and accurate presentation of that. There are several passing references, but...
• Can we nail down the precise birth year? 1974 was estimated by age.

  Okay, in June 09 he was 35, by December he was 36. So he turned 36 in 2009, which means he was born in 1973. This is also consistent with four additional articles I checked that provided a current age. --joe decker^{talk to me} 22:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

--joe decker^{talk to me} 15:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• Update: GLBTQ has a date, it's consistent with everything above, and my reading of consensus at WP:RSN is that GLBTQ is reliable enough for relatively uncontentuous info like this. So I've updated it, but commented out the old ("year only") version in case there's a request to revert at GAN. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

• Griffin is himself gay (the references that talk about gay teen suicide, plus others, mention/discuss this), but I haven't figured out how to coherently present that.

* Griffin was apparently a 2008 DNC delegate. Not sure that's reliable enough to add. (No RS, leave it out)

• Would like to see a pithy quote by him, and another about him (perhaps two quotes, one from someone critical.)
• I have some way-too-clever WP:OR that is totally usuable as to what his middle name is likely to be. But data? Middle name appreciated, if publicly, reliably sourced. (I was wrong, thanks for pointing me at the right answer, Boofer!) --joe decker^{talk to me} 05:45, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, more ideas welcome. --joe decker^{talk to me} 23:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Better picture?

There are so many pictures of Chad Griffin looking all hot and important... Couldn't we use one of those? Maybe with a direct face shot? Am I being nit picky? Sean Egan (talk) 07:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

You're not being nitpicky--I'd love to improve the article, and more ideas are good!

As Griffin is alive, we're required, I believe, to use free (public domain) or creative commons-licensed images of him. Point 1 of the list of requirements here essentially precludes "fair use" images of living people, since someone might create one tomorrow. And we already have the use of one, so, yeah, we're stuck with the "free image" requirement.

I was only able to find a very small number of images that met that restriction. This restriction disallows "fair use" from most of the newspaper coverage, etc., I've seen. If you've got some specific suggestions of images we can use under those restrictions, I'd love a pointer. Now, as it turns out, I do kinda like this image as an environmental portrait, but something, probably more like what you're thinking, would probably be more encyclopedic, too. Anyway, yes, more eyes, ideas and feedback are totally welcome. --joe decker^{talk to me} 15:02, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Source bucket

Additional sources to mine for details:

• Nuss, Jeannie (July 6, 2012). "Gay Rights Leader Lets Ark. Roots Take the Reins". ABC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
• "New head of Human Rights Campaign aims to stop losing streak for gay marriage". The Washington Post. Retrieved 26 July 2012.

 Done --j⚛e decker^talk 15:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Chad Griffin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Aircorn (talk · contribs) 08:34, 6 December 2012 (UTC) Okay, I will take this on. I know nothing about the person before reading this article. As is my usual style I will leave comments as I read through. Some will be part of the GA criteria, some will be general comments. If you could reply to each though it will help me keep track of where we are up to, even if it is a "I disagree with you." I welcome disagreement, I have done a few GA reviews now, but I am certainly fallible, so let me know if I am completely off base. After my comments I will do another read through and list the criteria and what I think fails (if anything). Generally these will be much less negotiable, although I am happy for you to convince me I am wrong. AIRcorn (talk) 08:34, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much, I just wanted to add that I'll attempt to mark  Done when I believe an item has been addressed, places where I've responded but not included that mark or something similar will usually be places where I have a question or pushback, or where I have said I'll try and address something but haven't actually done the work yet.  :) --j⚛e decker^talk 17:55, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've looked at all the points so far, and each have either made changes, left a question, or some pushback/discussion, mostly the former two, heading out for the evening in a few minutes, but I really want to thank you again, I felt your points so far have been very helpful. I should be back at the keyboard in the morning. --j⚛e decker^talk 01:13, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The time zone thing will probably work in our favour so we don't trip over each other. I hope I have answered all the questions you were asking. It is Friday night at the moment and I am partaking in a few brewskis so will probably not be able to add much more at the moment. Hopefully I can tie up a few loose ends tommorrow (spot checks, images etc). I think this will be an easy promotion from what I have seen so far. AIRcorn (talk) 09:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I've addressed your comments below so far, and will of course be glad to work on any thing I've missed or additional issues as they arise. A little early for a beer here, but at least my coffee is fresh.  :) Talk to you soon. --j⚛e decker^talk 14:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, there was a bit of news today, I think I've captured the relevant changes in a single edit, here, and the next events in the case should now be months off, so I'm expecting this won't prove too destabilizing. Ahh, timing is everything. :) --j⚛e decker^talk 22:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments

• While attending Ouachita Baptist University, he volunteered for the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, and received a job offer from Dee Dee Myers to join the transition team and administration "He volunteered" or "received a job offer". Was he employed or a volunteer? Did he volunteer, but get offered a job instead?

   Done Good point, that isn't very clear. Volunteered for the campaign before the election, then, after the election, was offered a job. I will attempt to reword to clarify. (note: I may respond to these issues out of order, but I do intend to respond to all.) --j⚛e decker^talk 15:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

• Griffin went on to lead the Reiner Foundation and to work with Reiner on numerous political efforts, including the founding of AFER. What is the Reiner foundation and what do you mean by lead? If there is a wiki article to link Reiner Foundation to then that would work, otherwise I think it needs some background.

  Good points. I haven't been able to find in-depth coverage of the RF, in fact, it was easier to find passing references that described it than to actually find a proper name. On reflection, I think simply calling it Reiner's charitable foundation (which can be sourced to [1]), is sufficient, I just don't see the sourcing to consider the Foundation notable. Does that address that portion of your concern?

Yeah. I was only interested in linking if there was an article already in existence. It would be unfair to ask you to create a new article. AIRcorn (talk) 07:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done I would certainly have added a stub if I had felt there was enough coverage, I enjoy that sort of build-out, but I realize it's not everyone's idea of fun.

• With respect to the use of the word "lead" here, sources generally appear to use the words "runs" or "heads", indicating to me "top person doing day-to-day work on the foundation", which would in my experience almost always reflect a title of "executive director" or some such in a non-profit US charity, but that title is unsourced save for a slightly ambiguous notation at a particular Deseret News article. Do you think a term such as "runs", "heads up", or "manages" would be better? --j⚛e decker^talk 15:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking there might be a job description, like "chairs" or something, but if that is unsourcable then leads is fine. AIRcorn (talk) 07:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done Indeed. Some of the older history was frankly difficult to get coverage on, but hat was actually part of the fun of working on this article.

• [...] I would link and sell out AFER here. I generally regard the lead and the body as separate beasts (I usually don't even read the lead before reviewing).

   Done, I'll move up the one-sentence description from the sentence below, I do think that will flow better for folks starting in this section. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

• That work has been widely recognized. By whom? Needs a cite at the very least, but the word widely is one to watch. In almost every case it is WP:OR.

   Done Yep, you're completely right. I'd intended the sentence to introduce/summarize the Out/Advocate items, but in particular, with the previous sentence about being best known for his work in LGBT rights, the items of recognition I think flow well enough without the sentence.

• moving up from 28th and 29th positions in previous years Could this be a bit more specific, or a bit more ambiguous. At the moment it is a bit of each.

   Done Sure, I went with specific year references, although I'm going to go back and reread that sentence, it's getting a bit stretched. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:13, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

• Just realised you citation style is a bit different than I am used to. Not a GA concern, but if I miss a sourced statement let me know.

   Done Not a problem. I was trying to balance out not having lots of footnote marks and sourcing navigation, and the result may very well be overthought or overwrought. If it gets in the way, please feel free to let me know, my goal here is primarily article improvement.

• Griffin and Reiner reflected on the No campaign's failure did they come to any realization as to why it did not work?

   Done? That is a fascinating question, and of course I wasn't there, but I haven't seen any reporting that would indicate one way or another. I have a few guesses (one could make a case that the attempt to make AFER a nonpartisan effort was an aftereffect, most of their work had been more politically polarized), but that doesn't belong in the article without sourcing, of course. I've gone back through the sources I have on that and came empty, but I will keep the question in mind.

• An acquaintance of Reiner's suggested speaking to conservative lawyer Theodore Olson I see this a lot in American politics articles. Is it important that the lawyer is qualified as conservative?
  • Nevermind the next sentence answers that.

  Still, I'll answer by way of providing US context -- I do think that the US is significantly polarized, and that the conservative vs. liberal framing is just part of the Zeitgeist here. In particular, same-sex marriage is seen as a very liberal (in the American sense of the word liberal, which is genrally seen as being equivalent to "Democrat") issue and nearly uniformly opposed by self-identified conservatives/Republicans. Olson, who was known already for appearing at the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore (a very controversial and seen-as-partisan case) -- on the conservative side, well, him appearing as a lawyer here has a certain "man bites dog" surprise to it to US readers familiar with him, as does the fact that the opposing litigator in Bush v. Gore is working with Olson on this one, there are numerous references to how seemingly opposite Olson and Boies are politically, e.g., "odd couple", etc.

• These same groups would later ask to intervene in the lawsuit, an attempt which Griffin fought, and which was ultimately unsuccessful. Wondering what his reasons for preventing intervention were?

   Done Point taken, yeah, we do have Griffin's letter [2] to those groups and third-party reporting ([3], search for "On July 8") of that letter to the groups to indicate Griffin's stated motivations. I've taken a stab at this, and I do feel that this was worth improving. Is the quote too long?

• In May 2009 AFER announced its creation after filing a lawsuit, now styled Perry v. Brown I feel we are missing some of the story. Who is Perry? Who is Brown? I know it is probably covered in Perry vs Brown, but a little bit of information (sentence or two) would help.

   Done Indeed! I may have tried too hard to avoid duplicating content here. The case name thing is even more messy than I've made it here, but it's generally going by Perry v. Brown at the moment, and I've added some text explaining the various parties (the latter is the governor of the state of California in his official capacity.) I have pushed a couple other sentences two paragraphs up as a result of this change, and as a result, I think the larger section here flows a little better, so I'm glad you suggested this.

• Perry was successful at district court and at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Why is Perry italicised? Is it because it is a short form of Perry vs Brown? MAybe spell out the whole name in this instance would be better (it is not really repeated enough). Unless this is standard jargon.

   Done Yep, I did mean it to be short for the case name, and while I think it's standard in legal articles (gah, what do I know, I'm a mathematician-turned-photographer), on the other hand, adding two words here costs little, and disambiguates Perry the case from Perry the plaintiff, so I'll just make the change. The disambiguation seems worthwhile. I'm going to take a couple hours elsewhere now, but will be back at this later today (California time, it's still morning here.)

• Other LGBT-related activity There is a bit of a push against short paragraphs. It does interact with the flow of an article a bit so is related to !a of the GA criteria. It is not bad here, but if possible maybe you could consolidate this section into a single paragraph. Or expand the section a bit and get maybe two decent paragraphs out of it.

  I'm part of the way, certainly the addition of material to the Biden, and to a lesser extent, HRC sections helped a little. I'm a little less sure how I'd want get combine into two paragraphs, so the job isn't done yet. The HRC section the one I'm most hesitant to merge, it's a new position, and I'd hope/expect more substantial material to evolve here. Perhaps another sentence or so generally describing HRC would be due? Outrage could be consolidated into the Biden question by force, but I'm not really sure how to make a smooth transition from the President supporting same-sex marriage into what Variety called "an exploding bathroom stall of a movie." Perhaps I should simply expand the Outrage section with that quote, but more seriously, I think I'll sleep on this, but would be grateful for any sage advice in view of the small expansions on the other two paragraphs. I do think that small paragraphs are bad, I just want to figure out a smooth way of accomplishing it in terms of tone and exposition.

Don't do it if it compromises the themes of the paragraph. I am happy with it in the current state if you are.

 Done} I am, but more so because of the expansions brought about by the points you raised below. Thanks!

• In 2012, Griffin was selected to succeed Joe Solmonese as president of the Human Rights Campaign No wikilink for Human Rights Campaign. If not I would at least red link it as it seems notable from its short description here.

   Done, but maybe you want to double-check my thinking here. Technically, adding this as I've done might be seen as overlinking, in context, I feel that it's actually helpful to do as you suggest, it's been a long time since the lead, and I don't count the image caption or infobox. --j⚛e decker^talk 19:36, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

My general rule with wikilinks is that they should appear once in the lead, once in the body, once in each table and once in each photo caption. AIRcorn (talk) 07:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done Cool, that's sensible.

• His appointment was generally well received in the LGBT community. I see you have three refs for this, but I feel it still gets close to OR. It is one of my pet nitpicks at GA reviews, but I like to see things attributed. What would you feel about saying something like "His appointment was well received by ......." and listing who received him well. Generally is so ambiguous anyway.

   Done? An entire list of the people quoted in the articles would get a bit long (I count about 11 opinions between the three articles), but perhaps I can get away with a "such as" and list a few of the more notable individuals quoted? While it was my sense from wider reading that this was the general flow of press (perhaps it always is in such cases, hope and praise), I see nothing but good in being a bit more specific here.

Looks good. AIRcorn (talk) 07:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done

• Griffin is also credited with a closed-door question which, in part, led Vice President Joe Biden to publicly share his support for same-sex marriage in May 2012. I am wanting more on this. What was the question? Who is crediting him? How did it lead to the public support?

   Done? I've taken a whack at this. It was complicated by the fact that we've got (unsurprisingly) imperfectly recounted quotes, but I can at least use and attribute what Biden said about it on "Meet the Press" at the time. The identification of Griffin as the person who asked is most direct in the Washington Post source, combined with a "source says it was Griffin" attribution in the CNN article and Griffin's self-identification as that person in a separate WP article, and the lack of anyone else arguing the point, I feel it's verificable enough. I did add the transcript to the sources there. You'll see I did abbreviate some back and forth, I'll include the few sentences from the transcript below here so that you can see if you feel it balances brevity with accuracy. Also, is the WP/CNN/etc. attribution in my text over the top?

I was with -- speaking to a group of gay leaders in, in Los Angeles two weeks ago. And one gentleman looked at me in the question period and said, "Let me ask you, how do you feel about us?" And I had just walked into the back door of this gay couple and there were their two adopted children. And I turned to the man on the house and I said, "What did I do when I walked in?" He said, "You walked right to my children, they were seven and five and giving you flowers." And I said, "I wish every American could see the look of love that those kids had in their eyes for you guys. And they wouldn't have any doubt about what this is about."

Changed "How you feel about us?" to "How do you feel about us?". I think you have overdone it a bit, but it is better to be safe rather than sorry. However, I don't like the himself part though. It sounds a bit weird that he identified himself. You could leave that part out if you want or just go with the Chad Griffin said without any attribution. I think the evidence is strong enough that we can safely get away with that. AIRcorn (talk) 07:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done? Removed the attribution entirely. The "himself" was a bit painful. I also did some rewording to remove a sentence fragment. The "May 6" also felt a bit much on rereading because of the "May 2012" here, so I removed the former, knowing that the precise date (and transcript) were available in the reference. A little better, I think, but I'm open to improvements, as always.

• Griffin was one of several executive producers of the 2009 documentary Outrage, which investigated allegations of homosexuality among a series of politicians who had opposed LGBT rights in their work. What do you mean by in there work? Do you mean as part of there political stance?

  Either by way of stance, or endorsement for legislation (or against). It turns out that while the sentence limiting this to politicians was verifiable, it wasn't actually entirely correct, as the film apparently also targeted a news anchor for Fox News, and Dick Cheney's daughter, who is gay but worked for her father's VP campaign. I've replaced "politicians" with "political figures" (not too far a stretch as a generalization) and am still struggling a bit with a sensible, neutral, verifiable and accurate wording -- "which investigated allegations of homosexuality among a series of political figures who had worked against LGBT rights" is the best I have so far, but I'm not sure it's easy to entirely narrow "work" much beyond that. "in their work" is gone, at least, and that was awkward. What do you think?

That works alright for me. Can't think of a better way to say this at the moment at least.

 Done

• Could you maybe combine some of the small paragraphs at the end of the other work section.

   Done

• Griffin is partnered with Jerome Fallon, with whom he attended a White House dinner in honor of David Cameron in 2012 Not sure why it is important to say he attended a White house in honor of David Cameron for.

   Done Mostly I think it was filler, the sentence looked small and lonely. --j⚛e decker^talk 19:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

• I see you started a sentence with an "And". I remember being told by a teacher once upon a time that you should never so that. AIRcorn (talk) 09:12, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

   Done I've replaced "And in 2006" with "Two years later", which I think rhythmically helps "complete the list" formed by the three CA propositions, but a little less forcefully than the "and" did, which I think is the issue here. That's also helped along with the "Prior to.." as we get to the Open Space Preserve effort, so I'm pretty happy with the change.

Criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Prose is good.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Spot checked some of the links during my first read through. Looked at some more just now and don't see any problems.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Focus and bredth is fine

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Neutrality is good

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Very stable, just needs to be kept up to date.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   The only image likely to be challenged I think would be the HRC logo, but I think it safely falls under the given simple geometry rational. Another thing you may like to do someday is crop the photo in the infobox so it shows a his profile better.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I just thought of one more thing. You may want to change the use of fragments like "now awaits review" and use a more date specific "as of December 2012". Then, even if the article is not updated the wording still remains accurate. AIRcorn (talk) 22:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

"former boyfriend"

I'd really like to know why someone keeps inserting "former" here without a reference. At Wikipedia, we back potentially contentous statements about living people with reliable sources, or we don't make them at all. But is there something I'm missing? Please discuss here, per the D in WP:BRD. Thank you. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:07, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Note: thanks for whoever added a source for this. --j⚛e decker^talk 02:25, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

2014 salary scandal

there is no mention of the 2014 scandal over Griffin's $507,000/year salary at HRC. perhaps that should be fixed? 173.87.171.88 (talk) 23:52, 7 February 2021 (UTC)