Talk:San Francisco Arts Commission

Maya Angelou sculpture discussion

Hey, Mewestin. I'm initiating a conversation in the talk page about the formatting of the article as it seems that we disagree on how it's organized. I appreciate the amount of research that you put in, and it's written really succinctly, however, I believe that it's more appropriate to keep it in my previous edit as a /*Proposed*/ subheader under /*Sculptures*/ heading. Maintaining a section about a single dispute over a contest seems pretty unbalanced per WP:UNDUE, as the organization has been around for more than 40 years. It's not like there isn't a history of dispute, e.g. Christopher Columbus statue. Therefore, it seems pertinent to merge the topics together to maintain a more neutral pov. Looking forward to hear your thoughts. — BriefEdits (talk) 01:16, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi BriefEdits. I am confused. Were you suggesting to create a heading titled "Sculpture" in this article, and add the monument controversy below that? Putting it under the general "Sculpture" article does not make sense. This is not information about "Sculpture," this is information about an ongoing event related to ongoing actions by the SFAC and its visual arts committee. This incident is tied up completely with the SFAC's governance, and it seems strange that it would not be found under an article about the organization. I don't understand what the relevance of the age of the organization is. Are you suggesting that because SFAC has been around for 40 years, it somehow is above information being added to it about an ongoing news story that has now attracted the attention of national art news outlets? That is not rational. Please don't delete this information from the SFAC page. I am curious to hear how this is not a neutral stance. This is information from 4 news outlets reporting directly from them. There is no opinion.

• Hey, Mewestin. I am not saying that the information should not be included; I am merely discussing how to better organize the article. In regards to the age, I am saying that the organization is old, therefore I would assume that there must be a litany of controversial topic matters that has been brought up throughout the years. For example, I'm sure you can find significant coverage regarding the proposed (and then eventual) removal of the Columbus statue atop Pioneer Park. That does not mean that there should be a Heading titled "Columbus Statue Controversy", because the central subject is not SFAC. (And this applies to my edit removing the "Maya Angelou statue controversy" heading on the Catherine Stefani article.) In order to maintain WP:NPOV, it is discouraged to give controversy its own section (per WP:CRIT) because it is WP:UNDUE and in this case will probably not even pass WP:10YT. This all goes to say that if this article was a book, would you dedicate an entire chapter to a messed up contest? You are free to write it in but listing it in the table contents would seem out of place. — BriefEdits (talk) 04:44, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

• Hi BriefEdits I see what you mean. What do you think about adding a heading called "Visual Arts Committee," and then add a description of what this group is and does, then below that a description of ongoing events? I can add that today. :)

• Hey Mewestin. I'm open to it. Obviously I prefer my original suggestion (as the central subject seem to be about a proposed sculpture), but I will do more research on the committee. I will change it to "Visual Arts Committee" for the meantime. — BriefEdits (talk) 03:38, 24 July 2020 (UTC)