User talk:Bluerasberry/cr

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Hi Blue. In general I think the article is far too long. The number of sections and sub-sections can be cut to about one-third and the article could be made about 30 percent shorter. For example, the Access to Information section could just have one paragraph for each topic without separate sub-sections. History can be trimmed to 4 sub-sections and a lot of these could be consolidated under Campaigns. The lawsuits should be merged with History and the Operations section could mostly be merged with other topics without sub-heads. The Key People should be removed with just a few kept in the Infobox.

I also think there's a lot of general editorializing. Some of the editorializing is promotional. In other cases, Consumer Reports is beating up on themselves too harshly. In others, it gets into a discussion on the industry in general instead of the company specifically.

All-in-all I would give it a close review to be as concise as possible with the aim of reducing the number of sub-heads by about 70 percent and the overall size by about 40 percent. CorporateM (Talk) 19:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Good advice. At this point rather than deleting content, I forked some into User:Bluerasberry/History of Consumer Reports. As you said, I combined the lawsuits into the history section then trimmed it all, putting the complete stories into the history article. It is unorthodox to have a separate history article for an organization, but also I would not want anyone to say that I omitted to name controversies. The content is well-referenced, I think, and despite it being more information than most people will expect I still think it could have a place somewhere. I will enact your other suggestions soon. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I removed the table of key persons.

Extended content

Key persons The following persons have served in official roles with Consumers Union. Persons at Consumers Union person occupation role at CU affiliation dates Arthur Kallet engineer founder, executive director 1936-1957? Colston Warne professor of economics founder, executive director, board member 1936-1980? Dexter Masters journalist technical director 1936-? Robert A. Brady economist CU founder, vice president 1936-? J. Robert Oppenheimer nuclear physicist advisory board 1938-39 Edward Reich educator advisory board 1943-1973 Mildred Edie Brady journalist editorial director, senior reporter 1958?–1965? Ralph Nader lawyer advisory board 1965?-1974? Rhoda H. Karpatkin lawyer president 1974-2000 James A. Guest laywer board member, president 1981-present Craig Newmark Craigslist founder advisory board ?-present

This material should just be integrated into the article, or maybe in the navigational box at bottom. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I removed a table of lawsuits.

Extended content

Legal cases Consumer Reports is a product testing organization. Throughout its existence, manufacturers have criticized Consumer Reports for the way it tests products, and have occasionally filed lawsuits in response to Consumer Reports' reporting. Here are some of the organization's major law cases relating to product testing. Legal Cases involving Consumers Union or Consumer Reports case name other party product nature of complaint more Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. Bose Corporation Loudspeaker Consumer Reports' ratings are inappropriate Suzuki Samurai v Consumers Union Suzuki Automobile Consumer Reports' ratings are inappropriate Sharper Image v. Consumers Union The Sharper Image Air purifier Consumer Reports' ratings are inappropriate Consumers Union v. General Signal General Signal Vacuum cleaner manufacturer used CR ratings and name in advertising

I thought that it would be better to integrate this content into the article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

On further thought - I am reconsidering whether and where key persons should be listed. I think again that they should, but that it should not be in the main article. I put a list of the people in the article at user:bluerasberry/History of Consumer Reports. The reason why I do not think the list should only be in the navbox is because there is no place for citations or explanations there. I do not think this should only be mixed into the article, because a standalone list has proven useful for organizations like universities which often have lists of their people either in a category or in some section or both. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Article rearrangement

I am employed as the Wikipedian in Residence at Consumer Reports. I have some article revisions which I would like to merge into the articles for Consumer Reports. Here is what I propose.

I would like to incorporate the content in this proposal into the articles at Consumer Reports and Consumers Union. Here is what I propose:

• Consumer Reports -> rename to Consumer Reports (publication) ->merge with or be replaced by user:bluerasberry/cr (magazine)
• Consumers Union ->rename to Consumer Reports -> merge with or be replaced by user:bluerasberry/cr

I comment on the nature of the revisions elsewhere, but in any case, the current article titles are confusing. I think there should be an article on the publication and an article on the organization. Right now these concepts are mixed and there is information about both the organization and the publication in both articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Notes

Michael F. Jacobson and CR staff seem to have collaborated multiple times on food safety projects. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Source for 1960 car safety info

In 1960 Edward R. Murrow did a documentary about car safety called "The Great Holiday Massacre". Some internal records at Consumer Reports say that this documentary was related to Consumer Reports' advocacy, but I have been unable to find the documentary or any review of it. It is on Worldcat. Perhaps it could be checked another time. I think this might be a review of Consumer Reports advocacy for automobile safety features. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)