Talk:Copwatch

Very weak citation

There was a poorly sourced statement in the Criticism section "Critics argue that the group has displayed signs of an anti-police agenda." Copwatch is a controversial organization and the statement is most likely true (You my even find some of the membersof copwatch to agree with it) unfortunately the article cited is very weak as an argument to this effect. Anyone who reads it will see that. I feel a either a better citation should be found or the line should be dropped. (as it does not add any information not found in the next paragraph) --Paul the less (talk) 23:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

To avoid a revert war I expanded the text to fit the cited source I hope this works as a compromise. --Paul the less (talk) 21:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

looks great --Paul the less (talk) 23:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

References

Letters to the Editor

Why are we citing the opinion of a non-notable person in a letter to a free weekly newspaper? I've never seen anything similar in other articles. The closest thing would be very notable people who've written LTEs on areas of their expertise, but even that is very rare.   Will Beback  talk  06:14, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

"Tim Dees, administrator of Officer.com," qualifies as a self-published source and should also be removed.   Will Beback  talk  07:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The issue of whether to include the editorial by Tim Dees has already been discussed in this talk page with greater detail under the sections "Officer.com and Tim Dees" and "Officer.com and notability". If you want to open the debate, I suggest you add to those sections and bring points that haven't been already discussed. Since this has already been discussed in detail, please don't remove the section until others have had to comment.DivaNtrainin (talk) 03:19, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I see editors giving opinions. But Wikipedia policies need to be followed unless there's a very good reason. I've started a fresh thread here. Please explain why these two sources, the editorial written by an administrator, and the two unsigned LTEs, should be used even though never qualify as a reliable source. The burden of proof is on whoever wants to add (or in this case, re-add)) the material.   Will Beback  talk  04:10, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I am going to copy some of the points already raised by Factchecker At Your Service: "First, Wikipedia requires articles, not sources, to have a neutral point of view; and we don't make any explicit presumption that "this or that source is probably going to be biased against the subject of this article so we won't include any mention of it". Second, NPOV requires that all notable and properly sourced POVs be represented, not that only the most positive views are included in the article. If you can find a source rebutting the Dees editorial, that can easily be cited. Third, the author of the opinion is clearly identified in the text, and so the article says that "Tim Dees says this..", not "This is true because Tim Dees said so" or anything like it. Fourth, while it's true that academic publications, journals, etc, and mainstream news articles are typically the best secondary sources, they are not always available -- "Copwatch" has not been the subject of much academic or journalistic discussion. It's my feeling that this critical editorial is an acceptable source for the subject". I would like to emphasize that simply saying that an author is non-notable person or saying this is an editorial doesn't mean that it does not meet Wikipedia's policies. I would suggest you review Wikipedia's guidelines on reliable sources.

First, this discussion has nothing to do with how neutral Miller's opinion is. Second, according to whom is the opinion of Tim Dees notable?Third, identifying a non-notable, non-expert persona as having an opinion doesn't change the underlying issue. This is little different from saying, "John Doe, who blogs at DoeSays, says that in his opinion..." Fourth, we don't pick the best available sources, even if they fail to meet standards. Instead, we pick the best sources which do meet the standards. This editorial does not meet the standards. Fifth, please cite which part of the WP:IRS do you feel covers this source? Sixth, I don't see any explanation here about the LTEs. Why did you restore those?   Will Beback  talk  05:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't really say anything to counter your objections except to say that I've always thought this article presented some difficult sourcing questions, since so much seems to have been said on this subject, yet so little of that comes from RS's. Regarding the LTEs, I didn't see that as a problem due to the direct counterpoint LTE by the copwatch member, but I can see that at best this would be at the very margins of the kinds of things we put on WP.

The Dees source was discussed extensively, and I could have sworn that it was debated at RSN, but looking back through my edit history I don't see any such discussion. I certainly thought of him as an expert, at least insofar as anyone is an "expert" on the type of conduct that's referred to as copwatching.

Incidentally, the sentence you tagged FV was just an inadvertent mistake, wherein I was adding that material but apparently cited the wrong source.. I've now found the correct source and removed the tag. Centrify (talk) (contribs) 20:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC) (previously editing as FCAYS)

I certainly agree that some topics are hard to find good sources for. That's why the notability guideline mandates that there need to be good sources available before we write an article. We should also look at what NPOV really says. It does not say, as some might imagine, that Wikipedia articles need to present a neutral account of a topic. We write about horrible crimes without trying to justify them. Rather, NPOV says that we present significant points of view in a neutral fashion, without endorsing or dismissing them, in proportion to their appearance in reliable sources. So if 20 source condemn a crime and 1 defends it, we do not devote equal space to both points of view nor do we denigrate the minority point of view (if still significant). Instead we'd spend most of the space describing the negative point of view but also acknowledge the positive POV. It's not easy.

As for the LTEs, the fact that they balance each other has no bearing on their suitability as sources. LTEs have rarely been discussed on RSN, perhaps because editors realize they are so far out of the realm of reliability. Most of the few discussions concern known or presumed experts writing to peer-reviewed journals. This is the only recent thread I can find on general LTEs: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_54#Letters to the editor. I just don't see any basis for including these.

As for the Dees editorial/blog, there are several elements to consider. I categorized it as a "self-published source", but I may have been mistaken in that regard because the website actually belongs to a media company (even though the blog page uses WordPress software, a mainstay of self-published blogs). However it's not clear that there was any editorial oversight over the blog. In the past, an article by the editor-in-chief of a small newspaper was considered to be SPS because there was no one higher than him to review it. Another interesting fact is that all of his postings have been deleted from the website. I don't know what to make of that, if anything: it may be just overzealous archiving. Editorials may be cited for opinions, but are not considered as suitable sources for facts. WP:NEWSORG. The material we had in the article asserted a number of facts. If we could rewrite it to simply give his opinion, for example just the first sentence of our material, then that would probably pass muster.

Thanks for finding the right source for the squad car cameras. It supports the assertion.   Will Beback  talk  21:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Appreciate the comments. I think that a big part of what you are saying is that many sourcing problems have no easy answers, and if that is what you mean, I have to agree. I'll give some thought to whether the Dees source merits a salvage attempt sometime in the future; in the meantime, this is a fairly obscure article and I don't think it will really disserve anyone to simply leave it in its current state, with all the sources you noted as questionable removed. Centrify (talk) (contribs) 21:51, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

On further review, Tim Dees is a frequent writer and editor on police-related issues, and he is more or less an expert. I'll go ahead and restore the sentence of material giving his opinion.   Will Beback  talk  08:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

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