Talk:Tim Eyman

I removed the word "conservative" from the first sentence. Descriptors such as "liberal" and "conservative" are contestable, almost fighting words. They probably should never be used in the first sentence of an article on a person, unless that person has publicly associated himself (or herself) with it. To describe Barry Goldwater as a conservative makes sense, since he's written a book called "Conscience of a Conservative." But Tim Eyman? Before giving an ideological descriptor like this, some evidence is in order.

For someone like economist F.A. Hayek, the descriptor "conservative" would be especially ill-suited, since one of his better-known essays is "Why I Am Not a Conservative." Nevertheless, you will often see writers call Hayek a "conservative," since he is IN THEIR JUDGMENT. But this judgment is contestable, and there's no place for such ideological name-calling and arguing in an encyclopedia article.

In Eyman's case, I've never heard him use the term. Maybe he does use it. But look, again, at the original first sentence (as placed on Wikipedia, and edited for Ballotpedia): "Tim Eyman (b. 1966) is a conservative political activist in Washington who uses direct democracy (initiatives and referenda) to pursue his stated goals of cutting taxes and limiting the power of the state government." We learn from the rest of the sentence more than enough about his actual ideology (limited government), and the adding of "conservative" doesn't add much, other than vagueness.

For all I know, Eyman is really a libertarian who tolerates conservatives only for political reasons. Whether that's the case, or he really does consider himself a conservative, that should require a separate and researched sentence or paragraph.

See the Style Guide for discussion of such issues regarding encyclopedia writing.