Talk:Arabella Advisors

Removing Fiscal Sponsorships section

This section was removed earlier and restored without consensus. It contains the meaningless phrase "utilize tax regulations" and is based on only two sources. The first, Inside Philanthropy, does not contain that phrase and does not support the section as a whole. The second, Open Secrets, is a political propaganda group, not WP:RS. The claim that certain groups do not file Form 990 omits critical statements from its own source. The groups don't file the form, but they're fully described on a form filed by their sponsor. Julian in LA (talk) 04:53, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

It isn't clear from the above what you object to. Do you not understand that Arabella Advisors both acted as a fiscal sponsor itself, and that the main funds it was affiliated with also acted as fiscal sponsors? See this PDF from Arabella Advisors to help you understand that. There are also dozens of RSes that could be used to support this. Here's one from Politico from November 2025. It's possible that you understand that Arabella and its affiliated groups acted as a fiscal sponsor, but you don't like the wording of one or more of the sentences in the section. Typically, when an editor doesn't like the wording, they propose different wording. Since you didn't do that, here are some phrases that could be used instead of the phrase you don't understand: 'utilize tax regulations'.

"Arabella Advisors and its affiliated entities operate under tax regulations that allow groups in a fiscal sponsorship arrangement to avoid filing a Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service."

"Arabella Advisors and its affiliated entities take advantage of tax regulations that exempt groups under a fiscal sponsorship arrangement from filing a Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service."

"Arabella Advisors and its affiliated entities use a fiscal sponsorship model permitted by tax law, which means the sponsored groups are not required to file a Form 990 with the IRS."

"Under U.S. tax law, groups that are fiscally sponsored by Arabella Advisors and its affiliates do not have to file a Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service."

"Arabella Advisors and its affiliated entities employ a fiscal sponsorship structure allowed by IRS rules, so the sponsored projects are not required to file a Form 990."

You also write two sentences at the end of your statement that don't quite make sense. I've annotated them so you can see where you'd need to add additional words to clarify your meaning: "The claim that certain groups do not file Form 990 omits critical statements [which critical statements?] from its own source [when you say "its", what are you referring to? Earlier in the sentence, you mentioned multiple groups and now you seem to be talking about just one. What source are you referring to and please provide the link]. The groups [what groups? The fiscally sponsored groups?] don't file the form [what form?], but they're fully described [where?] on a form filed by their sponsor. [when you say 'their sponsor', do you mean 'their fiscal sponsor'? If so that indicates that you understand that there is a fiscal sponsorship going on here]." Why do you think it is relevant to say that the fiscal sponsor "fully describes" them on some form that it files? Does that somehow mean that there is no fiscal sponsorship arrangement? Novellasyes (talk) 16:52, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

(1) your proposed changes give the impression that the law contains an exemption for Arabella Advisors. That's not true.

(2) if Arabella has posted a PDF that gives important information. you should reference it in the article rather than asking me to read it.

(3) your reference to Politico is the same piece that is already referenced in the article. While Politico is generally reliable, this is an opinion piece by Caitlin Oprysko, whose LinkedIn profile describes her as an "influence reporter" at Politico for the past five years. It contains opinion language such as, "The left’s preeminent dark money hub dished out …" The only source it cites has the Inquirer-worthy language, "according to new tax filing shared first with POLITICO." The link takes you to the very thing that this article denies: Form 990, posted to the Internet by one of the organizations whose secrecy they have condemned.

(4) the questions you put in brackets are answered by an edit that I made a month ago that was reverted hours later: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arabella_Advisors&diff=1316862362&oldid=1316809451 Julian in LA (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

It isn't clear from the above what you object to. Seems perfectly clear and specific. Not sure how you could come to that conclusion. Viriditas (talk) 21:18, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Julian in LA suggests that the entire fiscal sponsorship section should be removed. It's not clear to me whether Julian in LA thinks that the entire fiscal sponsorship section should be removed because (a) there is no evidence that Arabella/its affiliates serve as fiscal sponsors, (b) there is some evidence but it is from weak sources, or (c) Julian in LA would agree that Arabella/its affiliates serve as fiscal sponsors but doesn't agree with the words/phrases used to describe the fiscal sponsorships undertaken by Arabella/its affiliates. Novellasyes (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Frankly, Julian in LA lacks the competence to be engaging on this article and is wasting everyone's time. Saying "OpenSecrets is a political propaganda group" is bizarre and totally inaccurate. We needn't go in endless circles here, especially when Julian in LA is engaging in bad faith. At Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Arabella Advisors#Editing of Wikipedia page they appear to have threatened a lawsuit. They have cast aspersions here like baselessly claiming Novellasyes is a COI editor. All the while gaining no traction on their mostly incomprehensible tirades about the content here. I have tried ignoring this editor and hoping they'll go away, but that's obviously not happening, so it's time to seek a sanction, which I'll figure out how to do. Marquardtika (talk) 03:36, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

That said, I looked around in WP:RS to see what other editors have had to say about OpenSecrets. I love OpenSecrets and I (perhaps mistakenly) viewed it as a website that people would think is quite reliable. I see that it has been used as a source on 1,602 pages. I'm not sure I did the internal search at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard correctly but if I did, the last time there was much of a conversation about it was in 2014: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 173#OpenSecrets.org (and the Center for Responsive Politics). I thought I might ask on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard what the current views are amongst those who deliberate on these matters. I would hate to have commentary sitting around on a talk page to the effect that OpenSecrets is a political propaganda group go unchallenged -- but maybe that's what others think as well? I'd like to find out. Novellasyes (talk) 22:41, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is "OpenSecrets" / the Center for Responsive Politics reliable?. Novellasyes (talk) 22:54, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

There seems to be two OpenSecrets. The first is a respected database that compiles Federal Election Commission reports. The second is called "OpenSecrets Original Reporting" and is reached only from a button found halfway down the OpenSecrets main web page. This leads to a series of bylined opinion articles that attack organizations and industries all across the political spectrum. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/

This article has numerous references that only identify OpenSecrets as the source and only include its references to Arabella. Here is one example:

According to OpenSecrets, in 2018 the Sixteen Thirty Fund had "thirteen multi-million dollar secret donors." https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/11/liberal-dark-money-op-impeachment/

The link identifier discloses that this is a bylined article of Anna Massoglia. A search of her name reveals that she is "an investigative journalist, researcher, and independent advisor" and was Director of Investigations for the now-defunct Sunlight Research Center. https://nationalpress.org/speaker/anna-massoglia/ The quoted phrase does indeed appear in the article, but the context is omitted. The word "secret" is typical of opinion articles, but it would have been more accurate to say "private" or "unidentified", as nobody will go to jail under the Official Secrets Act for revealing it. There is nothing in the Arabella article saying that 13 is more or fewer than any other national organization has, or what significance Massoglia attributes to it. Julian in LA (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Reporters at WP:RS may disappoint an editor here or there on Wikipedia by not writing their article the way that the disappointed editor wishes that they had written their article. They may use adjectives that the disappointed editor would not have chosen, if the disappointed editor had written the article for the WP:RS. They may not have included the context that the disappointed editor thinks they should have included. And so on. And yet, we as lowly Wikipedia editors must perforce go with what RSes say, because their judgment is regarded as being superior to our judgment. This is why experienced editors don't debate with each other about what they think the reporter ought to have said. What the disappointed editor thinks the reporter should have said, or wishes that they had written instead of what they did write, isn't relevant. Wikipedia editors can debate whether a publication is reliable and you're invited to do that here: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is "OpenSecrets" / the Center for Responsive Politics reliable?. There are not two OpenSecrets. There is one OpenSecrets that, as I point out at the link I just shared, publishes both data sets and original investigations, news, and analysis. Both of those types of content fall under their editorial standards. Sometimes, the folks at WP:RS determine that a publication is reliable for some things but not others. You are welcome to try to make that argument on the RS Noticeboard. You mention that an article was bylined and you mention some biographical facts about the bylined writer as if these are relevant and important facts. They aren't. The fact that a reader accesses a digital publication's content by clicking on a button they found halfway down on the publications' website is also not something that is even remotely relevant to judging whether the content is reliable. Novellasyes (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

You'll have to provide a reference for the statement that these blogs fall under their "editorial standards." The original wording gave the impression that this was reviewed and approved by the OpenSecrets governing board. Julian in LA (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

From the OS website here it shows Anna Massoglia as being "OpenSecrets' Editorial and Investigations Manager. She is also responsible for OpenSecrets' dark money research and researches foreign influence as a part of Foreign Lobby Watch." This is not some rogue "blog" with without editorial standard (your quotation marks removed). In more of the articles where we use her work she also has a co-author. I agree with Novellasyes that that place to argue against OS as a WP:RS is on that noticeboard, lest we have 1,600+ discussions on article talk pages whenever an editor doesn't like what the source says. BBQboffin^{grill me} 22:30, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

The mission of OpenSecrets Original Reporting is to keep the donations flowing for OpenSecrets. The page you linked includes a blurb at the bottom, "Republish This Article." A search of newspapers.com for Massoglia's 2019 reporting shows that it was not picked up by any of the member newspapers. Several quoted her briefly as a "expert", but none identified her as representing OpenSecrets or being a manager there.

For example, a late 2020 article quoted an email from her, but said only that "she is responsible for researching dark money for OpenSecrets.org."

The Plain Dealer, Page E5, Cleveland, Ohio · Sunday, December 06, 2020 https://www.newspapers.com/image/1156190374/?terms=Anna%20Massoglia

Julian in LA (talk) 22:55, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, your opportunity to win consensus awaits... Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is "OpenSecrets" / the Center for Responsive Politics reliable? ...and you can make your case there. But a quick search on WP for the phrase "OpenSecrets Original Reporting" only turns up this talk page, meaning that on the other 1,601 pages, editors are not adding any caveat to "OpenSecrets". BBQboffin^{grill me} 23:30, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

This is not an encylopedia article

I suggest the article should be written as an encyclopedia article, with all soapboxing removed. Too many of the sources are poor, the writing style is combative, WP:NPOV is not observed, it's shot through with conspiracy theories. What editor would propose that a book called The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America is going to be helpful? The usual WP structure would be to lay out a neutral description and have a limited controversy or criticisms section where the biases of sources are made clear. If in doubt make the whole article shorter so it can be more solid and neutral. Anna (talk) 00:39, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Anna Roy: Feel free to help here by removing poor sources and rewriting as you suggest; WP:BEBOLD. I removed the tag you added because whole article tags like that are usually too vague; here you describe many problems which (in my opinion) aren't POV issues. Feel free to tag poor sources or remove statements sourced to them. Thanks! ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:35, 14 January 2026 (UTC)