Talk:Protest paradigm

Dispute over long quotes

Sphilbrick brought up an important point on my talk page about the use of long quotes in this article (currently a draft). For context, his whole comment is below:

I am concerned about the length of the quote in this edit

Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, to protect the rights of copyright holders. That said, the mere fact that material in an article matches the copyrighted source does not automatically mean it is a copyright violation. One of the important exceptions is quoted material. You have complying with the important requirements that it be clearly identified as a quotation and attributed.

However, while Wikipedia, understandably, has avoided formal rules about lengths of quotes, generally speaking "a long quotation should not be used where a shorter quotation would express the same information." Even that statement comes from an essay (Wikipedia:Quotations), which doesn't have the same force as a guideline or policy.

I'd like to start with a discussion to learn your thoughts on this issue.

My response will focus on this general policy guideline stated by the user: a long quotation should not be used where a shorter quotation would express the same information. I believe that a shorter quote does not express the same information, and that significant information in the context of the article would be lost if trimmed. I believe this for many reasons: A) reading long quotes in the broader context of this article will better give the reader the opportunity to spot patterns they just read about for themselves, which makes for a more interesting reading experience; B) because seeing long-form text that pretty much all individuals frequently come across will ground the article in real-world clear cut instances of the protest paradigm that we encounter often without even thinking about, making it feel more grounded; C) because quotes are extremely relevant to the material covered in this article compared with the degree of benefit from including long-form quotes in other articles; D) quotes are clearly marked as such and are in blockquote format meaning they are easy to skim over, and I'm only planning to use 2-3 per section (the best examples I can find); and E) because the long quotes are rife with implications and multifaceted in their employment of the protest paradigm that are not sufficiently summarized using short quotes.

For reference, the five main characteristics of the protest paradigm are:

(1) narrative framing, (2) reliance on authorities, (3) no public support, (4) delegitimization, and (5) demonization.

In the below quotes, I will insert a number corresponding to one of the above characteristics when I believe it is invoked (usually many are invoked at a time, but I'll simply mark the best match).

Applying this method to the Boston Globe quote:

This is the problem with overstated expectations (4), and with confusing high emotion with effectiveness. The protesters' stated goal was to turn Wall Street into Tahrir Square, but too many Americans do have jobs to make an Arab-Spring-style uprising even possible (3). It's hard to take a protest fully seriously when it looks more like a circus (1) – some participants seem to have taken a chute straight from Burning Man – and when it's organized by a Canadian magazine and a computer-hacking group (1). (Also, organizers first declared that they would draw 20,000 protesters, but only 1,000 showed up. That's not a media conspiracy. It's math.) (3)

All of which explains why, when it comes to channeling liberal rage – or liberal sarcasm, which sometimes works just as well – Elizabeth Warren has a much better shot. Indeed, in a race that's getting national attention, she may have found the perfect medium for her corporate-accountability message. (4)

Not only does this quote invoke 3 out of 5 of the general characteristics of the protest paradigm—it also invokes more specific elements previously discussed in the article (like favoring bipartisan electoral politics over direct action).

Now doing the same for a Fox News BLM quote:

More than a dozen U.S. cities — still reeling from a grim night of violent riots (1) — have implemented nighttime curfews in an effort to mitigate the worst of what they have seen (2) in the days following the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who died in police custody after a white officer kneeled on his neck for more than 8 minutes in a moment caught on cellphone video. More than 1,000 people were arrested Saturday night alone after peaceful demonstrations turned into violent — and in some cases deadly — riots (5). Meanwhile, some 5,000 National Guard members have been deployed in at least 15 states in a desperate bid to stem the mayhem, chaos and wreckage (1). Attorney General William Barr said in a statement Sunday that as the rioting spreads in cities across the country, "voices of peaceful and legitimate protests have been hijacked by violent radical elements" (4) and that they are working to "pursue their own separate, violent, and extremist agenda. (3) It is time to stop watching the violence and to confront and stop it. The continued violence and destruction of property endangers the lives and livelihoods of others, and interferes with the rights of peaceful protesters, as well as all other citizens," Barr said. (2) Barr said the violence "instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups" in connection with the rioting is "domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly." (2)

Again, why I think this paragraph in whole is fantastic to include is because, in addition to invoking 5 out of 5 of the general characteristics of the protest paradigm, it showcases just how disproportionately authority narratives are being deferred to in order to supplement other strategies, which is discussed previously in the article. It also spends only around 5 seconds talking about the actual issue at hand, again previously discussed as a tactic. And finally, it focuses overwhelmingly on violent protests even though they were mostly peaceful creating a warped sense of proportion about the protests like previously described, therefore strengthening the legitimacy of the article's claims in the eyes of the reader.

Please let me know what you think of my reasoning. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 13:48, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I am Diannaa and I am an administrator. I think there's both too many quotes and the quotes are too long. The article is 25% quotations by word count. Typically we write Wikipedia content ourselves, summarizing our sources rather than copying them verbatim.— Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 19:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

You guys are the admins so if you insist then I am of course happy to trim down the quotes. But if you could provide a little more insight into the maximum amount of quotes you think are appropriate per example in the article (e.g., "2 quotes per example instead of 3," "3 quotes per section is fine if each quote is roughly half the average quote's current length," etc), that would be greatly appreciated. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 19:49, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

There's no set limit on the size or number of quotations. What we're supposed to do is use only short quotations, and only if there's no alternative. Wikipedia articles should for the most part be written in our own words, and quotations used only when absolutely necessary. For example, for a book, it would be more appropriate to provide a few short excerpts (one or two sentences) from reviews rather than extensive quotations from the book itself or from an interview with the author. Wikipedia:Non-free content#Text says "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea"; "Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited." Please see Wikipedia:Non-free content, especially Wikipedia:Non-free content#Text, for more details. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 19:58, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi Diannaa, thank you for letting me know! I'm working with Sphilbrick to figure out a solution. What do you think of the sample I proposed in response to his comment (putting the full quote in an efn footnote template with clearly attributed sources and keeping the main article in summary form)? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:00, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer to help shorten the quotations. While I suspect and even hope that you have more interest in working on the draft article than debating style questions, I would like to add a few points:

• It is commonly but mistakenly assumed that administrators have special authority when it comes to editorial questions. Reaching decisions related to editorial issues relies on Wikipedia:Consensus, a process in which all editors can participate. The weight of arguments is more important. One hopes that administrators, who are expected to have extensive knowledge of policies and guidelines, will be more apt to express views grounded in well-reasoned rationale, it is never the case that an editorial decision can be rendered simply because the person making it is an administrator
• I am personally a big fan of the use of quotations in articles, for more than one reason. Stylistically, a sea of long text can be off-putting. I think it is more engaging when passages of text are sprinkled with other elements such as graphics, tables of relevant numbers, and quotations. More importantly, given the astounding fact that we let just about anybody contribute text to an article, it can happen that an assertion is made in an article, accompanied by a link to a source, but that source doesn't backup the assertion. Given the likelihood that casual readers are not going to check every reference, this can lead to problems. Inclusion of a quote is not a guarantee but it can help ensure that the assertions in the articles are accurate.
• While I support quotations in articles I'm an even bigger fan of using the quote parameter in a reference. Many editors are not aware of this option, but the citation template has an optional parameter allowing you to add a relevant quote which will not appear in the main text of the article but will appear in the list of references. That can be helpful for those readers who aren't willing to pull up the full reference but would like to see some evidence that the reference supports the assumption.
• I take responsibility for reaching out to Diannaa (talk · contribs), not because she's an administrator, but because she has extensive experience with copyright issues. (Over 100,000 CopyPatrol entries addressed, possibly more than all other editors combined). I was focusing on the absolute length of the quotation (152 words) while she picked a different metric — the proportion of the article comprised of quoted material. Both metrics are relevant.
• I agree with you that the Boston Globe article was very much on point. My suggestion (not an administrator dictate, just a suggestion from another editor) is to construct a paragraph mostly in your own words. It might say something like "A recent Boston Globe article hit on all six of these key points. It made the point that blah, blah, blah. The article also pointed out that something else. " Your paragraph might include one or two or three separate quotes from the Boston Globe in the main text of the article, and might support one or two or three with a reference using the quote parameter.

S Philbrick(Talk) 15:34, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, you cleared a lot of things up for me. Yes, I'm definitely more interested in the article itself than debate, but I just wanted to pause until getting a better sense of how to proceed with quotes, which I think your comment helped with. I actually wasn't thinking about the quote parameter in a citation — that's a great suggestion if I implement the summary-style paragraph as an alternative so that I can still keep the longer quote. That actually gives me another idea though in the same spirit that I like a little more: I could store the reference inside an efn template containing the entire quote so that it's easier to read, rather than being bundled in with ref info that should probably be separate from long-form quotes.

Something like this (a rough summary that I'd refine and probably lengthen before putting into the actual article) is what I'm thinking as an alternative to the current Boston Globe long-form quote:

"

Joanna Weiss of The Boston Globe invoked the protest paradigm in an article titled "The right way to get heard" in which she characterized OWS as a "circus", said "too many Americans have jobs" for OWS to be realistic, and advocated Elizabeth Warren as a better alternative to the movement.

"

I'm going to start converting quotes into something closer to this format for the time being since I feel like this is a happy medium — please let me know though what you think of this proposed alternative. Excited to get this implemented!

(As a side note, my attempt at using collapse top/collapse bottom below for some reason wouldn't properly render text below collapse bottom, instead grouping it in with the collapse section. I can't find any templates that properly let me collapse on a talk page and I've struggled with this in the past, so if you have any suggestions for collapsing talk page text, that would be super helpful.) Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Source stuff

Notes

References

Sample text that should not be rendered because it is written after collapse bottom Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

On the one hand I'm thrilled that you are willing to engage instead of simply pushing back which is obviously what should happen but doesn't always.

However, despite having years of experience, including long-term interest in citation styles, I haven't used the EFM template enough to feel comfortable with it. As you have already noted, references are handled a little differently on talk pages, and I'm finding the combination trying to do references on the talk page using a template I'm unfamiliar with, coupled with collapsing content has overwhelmed my ability to figure out how to test what you want to try. I thought I'd solve one problem by creating a sandbox User:Sphilbrick/EFN test, so that the content would be an article space rather than talk page space, but I haven't yet figured out why the EFN footnote isn't showing up.

The second issue relates to the length of quotes. As you already surmised, I have concerns about using to longer quote in article space. For years I've wondered if an argument can be made that the length of a quote in a reference, either using the quote parameter in a citation or as a footnote, could be longer than a quote used in an article. While I think such a case can be made it is not simply that editors could agree upon it — the limitations on quotes is partly due to copyright law issues and we have to get the lawyers involved. I've worked with the Wikimedia lawyers on copyright issues, but I don't think I'll surprise you if I say that involving the lawyers in such an issue is far from a trivial undertaking. I'm not sure I have the bandwidth to take that on at this time.

My hope is that can break this into a short-term and longer-term issue. In the short term I hope you will simply shorten the length of quotes used, and if you are still editing over the longer term, I might find the bandwidth to address the more challenging issue of how to acceptably incorporate longer quotes into an article by means other than dropping them into the main text of the article. Sphilbrick

Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate you creating the sandbox and working on getting some of the syntax issues figured out. It sounds to me like you believe we should not include the long-form quotes at all until we get confirmation from lawyers. I'm a little disheartened that copyright in such cases is so strict even with regards to having a footnote with one paragraph, but if that's the case, I can simply summarize the quotes until we get better clarification. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 15:58, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I've asked Diannaa to comment on the proposal and would like to hear what she has to say if that's alright Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:01, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you need the quotes at all, since all the material therein is readily available on the Internet. My preferred method would be for you to write the article in your own words and cite your sources, using quotes sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 19:45, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I feel like including a paragraph or so of the best examples of the protest paradigm from each article (in a way very tucked-away behind an efn) serves the same purpose as Wikipedia articles: making the most important information more accessible to the reader in order to save the readers the time of having to dig deep to access said information themselves. Sorry, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just feel like the absolute of never making long-form quotes accessible in a Wiki page might not always be best for the article. If you insist though then I can back down or start a separate RfC, as I don't want to cause any drama. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:01, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Once I finish the Gaza war protests section, I'm going to move the article to the mainspace. If you insist, I'll remove all the footnotes, so feel free to let me know if you see the current format as seriously problematic, and no worries if this is the case. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 18:15, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Article is incredibly america-centric

I'm aware this article is new, but I've noticed a general slant not only towards left-populism, but American media in general. The article's topic should theoretically cover the whole world (i.e outlets like Belarus 1 or Pink (Serbia). _⛿ WeaponizingArchitecture | yell at me 23:01, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Before removing essential sourcing and introducing citation errors, please consult the talk page in the future if you dispute specific sources.

You're welcome to expand the article if you feel like it's America-centric. But the reason it's America centric is largely because it's better documented in America and more prevalent in America than many other countries. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 01:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

This claim is deeply unserious and doesn't adress the fact that the article gives undue weight to US media. Such techniques have been used extensively and perfect by figures such as Vladislav Surkov, Serbian media since Milosevic, etc. Daseyn (talk) 19:37, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Then like I said, you're welcome to expand the article. I added the Greta Thunberg section, which is outside the US. I don't know what else you want from me.

This claim is deeply unserious - No, it's documented by WP:RS sources in the article. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 20:23, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

I did some thinking about your comment and if you would like to expand the article, I had an idea of a good starting point.

I reached out to the grad student who wrote an article about the protest paradigm in coverage of the death of Mahsa Amini. If you'd like me to send over the PDF to you, let me know and I'd be happy to do so. Below is the citation for the article:

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

For future reference, if you have criticisms of an article (especially one that's already been reviewed by other editors and admins), the best course of action isn't always to immediately add the "multiple issues" tag to the top of the page—starting a discussion on the talk page is often a better course of action because your opinion about issues with the article might not always be shared by others. If everyone added tags every time they had a problem with a page instead of starting a discussion, every Wiki page would be marked as having "multiple issues", even when it's better to raise more specific concerns on the talk page instead. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 01:57, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

"Specific examples" sourcing

@Alexandraaaacs1989: most of the examples given of the protest paradigm only have citations linking to the articles in question, without providing any secondary sources claiming these are examples of the protest paradigm. Compare to, for example, the coverage from USA Today and The New York Times on Occupy Wall Street, which cites a paper from the International Journal on Communication about the protest paradigm as it relates to those newspapers and the given quotes in the Wikipedia article. Without similar reliable secondary sources for the other examples, I believe the text constitutes original research. Do you have sources specifically naming these articles as part of the protest paradigm?

ARoseThorn (talk) 22:42, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Other notes:

• This conversation is distinct from the previous one about the quantity and length of the quotes.
• One possible counterargument is that "You don't need to cite that the sky is blue" – i.e. it's obvious that these articles fit into the protest paradigm, so no additional source is needed. I disagree; in the previous discussion, you say "I will insert a number corresponding to one of the above characteristics when I believe it is invoked" (emphasis mine), indicating there's room for disagreement.

ARoseThorn (talk) 22:59, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes some of the sourcing does not explicitly connect the examples provided to the protest paradigm, and you correctly anticipated my counterargument relies on WP:SKYBLUE (and WP:NOTCOM).

But I'm not sure saying I believe a policy applies automatically makes this belief OR. Editors can believe WP:SKYBLUE/WP:NOTCOM apply because the basis of thinking any policy applies somewhere is a matter of belief no matter an editor's level of confidence that the policy applies. As a result, there's always room for disagreement. I just happen to believe the threshold of obviousness (in WP:SKYBLUE and WP:NOTCOM) has been met, and I don't believe people who disagree with me on this point are using common sense when interpreting the sources.

Per WP:OR, "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation" and "Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source." To me, the articles' use certainly counts as analysis or interpretation.

any interpretation of primary source material that isn't made by secondary sources are OR, per OR like you said. But the only interpretation being done is basically saying "this is an instance of the protest paradigm" as the term has been defined by RS in the article. So this very surface-level interpretation, which makes it less extraordinary and more strongly protected by WP:SKYBLUE/WP:NOTCOM.

For example, the notion that the below example engages in the protest paradigm is (per WP:NOTCOM) obvious to anyone who reads and understands the sources that are supposed to support it. It engages in multiple of the protest paradigm strategies explicitly described by academic RS in the article ("carnival" narrative framing, delegitimization, no public support, omission of goals, framing electoral politics as a more realistic alternative):

This is the problem with overstated expectations, and with confusing high emotion with effectiveness. The protesters' stated goal was to turn Wall Street into Tahrir Square, but too many Americans do have jobs to make an Arab-Spring-style uprising even possible. It's hard to take a protest fully seriously when it looks more like a circus – some participants seem to have taken a chute straight from Burning Man – and when it's organized by a Canadian magazine and a computer-hacking group. (Also, organizers first declared that they would draw 20,000 protesters, but only 1,000 showed up. That's not a media conspiracy. It's math.) All of which explains why, when it comes to channeling liberal rage – or liberal sarcasm, which sometimes works just as well – Elizabeth Warren has a much better shot. Indeed, in a race that's getting national attention, she may have found the perfect medium for her corporate-accountability message.

If you believe some articles are not obvious enough that WP:SKYBLUE/WP:NOTCOM apply, then we can review each article on a case-by-case basis. But based on the above, it seems pretty clear that at least some of the articles included that were not explicitly connected by secondary sourcing to the protest paradigm are WP:DUE for inclusion per WP:SKYBLUE/WP:NOTCOM. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 13:48, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

@Alexandraaaacs1989 You're right that my counter-argument was not thorough. Admittedly, it just seemed very clear to me that asserting that any article follows any paradigm requires analysis or interpretation of the article; from your response above it seems you do agree that these examples are interpretations, albeit surface-level interpretation. However, how surface-level an interpretation is isn't relevant to whether the original research policy applies; the policy is about "Any interpretation of primary source material".

Furthermore, I think that you're being too expansive with the use of 'obvious' and 'common sense'. Applying the points described within the paradigm inherently requires a series of value judgements. For example, in your Boston Globe analysis above:

• Saying "This is the problem with overstated expectations..." is an example of delegitimization supposes the claims that it is factually true that the expectations of the protesters are not overstated, and that the article does an insufficient job elsewhere providing the context and intent of the protesters.
• Saying "...too many Americans do have jobs to make an Arab-Spring-style uprising even possible" is an example of no public support supposes on the claim that people being unable to participate in an uprising implies they do not support it.
• Saying "It's hard to take a protest fully seriously when it looks more like a circus" is an example of narrative framing supposes the claim that "look[ing] like a circus" is a framing repeated for other events, though this one seems like a very straightforward synthesis from the given sources (e.g. Xu's "carnival") so it's pretty reasonable in my opinion.
• Saying "Also, organizers first declared that they would draw 20,000 protesters, but only 1,000 showed up." is an example of no public support requires the claim that the intent of their comparison is to show that the protest is generally not liked by the public, I think – I may be misinterpreting what is meant by this point.
• I'm honestly not quite sure how saying "All of which explains why, when it comes to channeling liberal rage – or liberal sarcasm, which sometimes works just as well – Elizabeth Warren has a much better shot. Indeed, in a race that's getting national attention, she may have found the perfect medium for her corporate-accountability message." is an example of delegitimization; my best understanding is that it's delegitimizing by saying Warren will be effective, and as such the protests will be ineffective, but I'm not totally sure if that's what you meant.

It's not that I disagree with your interpretation – in fact, I think a majority of the points made above are in fact in line with the claims of the protest paradigm – it's that there are a series of personal judgements which must be made in order to support that interpretation. ("You do need to cite that the sky is blue" is a good read on reasons that something which might seem common sense should still be cited, though I doubt you're unfamiliar with the arguments.)

If we can't reach agreement on this, I think the best course of action would be to bring the matter to Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard.

Regards, ARoseThorn (talk) 03:12, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

• This is the problem with overstated expectations, and with confusing high emotion with effectiveness. - Frames protesters' goals as inherently problematic and protesters as being high-emotion rather than "effective" (e.g. by voting for Elizabeth Warren). Delegitimization
• The protesters' stated goal was to turn Wall Street into Tahrir Square, but too many Americans do have jobs to make an Arab-Spring-style uprising even possible. - Treats protesters' goals as inherently unrealistic due to the nature of the US as a first-world country. Delegitimization
• Carnival narrative framing (we agree)
• Also, organizers first declared that they would draw 20,000 protesters, but only 1,000 showed up. That's not a media conspiracy. It's math. - Framing the protest as too incompetent to attract an audience, and that their audience as lackluster, in a sarcastic tone. Delegitimization/No public support
• Yes you were right about Warren. RS in the article talk about how good news is more likely when journalists cover bipartisan politics, and bad news is more likely when journalists cover protests (source), so this is directly supported by RS as being a behavior engaged in within the protest paradigm.

Most importantly, some level of interpretation is always necessary in every article, and this can be the case without committing any OR violations. Summarizing material involves interpreting the original words to create a new way of explaining your interpretation of what you read. The sum of 5 + 5 involves interpreting the numbers to be 10. So the assertion that OR is about Any interpretation of primary source material doesn't seem to apply absolutely. There's a threshold for sure, no? Can we get on the same page about this?

I think we should go to the noticeboard for second opinions if we both agree there's a threshold of direct-ness in when it comes to whether a claim can be counted as OR. If we simply disagree about where on the spectrum OR ends, I'm not sure how we'll be able to convince each other using arguments. But if you have any ideas on how to draw the line, I think we can avoid the noticeboard and solve things here until we arrive at an impasse. I'm open to changing my mind and I hope you are too!

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 06:18, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

@Alexandraaaacs1989 Thank you for your explanation. There are some specific points I could pick at – for example, I don't read That's not a media conspiracy. It's math. as "sarcastic" per se – but I think that's beyond the point, and anyways I really don't want to get into a word-by-word analysis of the articles.

We are in agreement that there's a threshold of direct-ness in when it comes to whether a claim can be counted as OR. While I disagree with your claim that The sum of 5 + 5 involves interpreting the numbers to be 10 – to me, that requires an unusual interpretation of the word "interpreting" – saying "five plus five equals ten" is definitively a claim which falls under WP:SKYBLUE; indeed, there's an section about "routine calculations" on Wikipedia:No original research. However, to my knowledge there are no such provisions for the kind of analysis being presented here.

We presumably do have different ideas on where on the spectrum OR ends, and it seems my conception is stricter than yours. However, at the end of the day, the question we're trying to answer is "Is the inclusion of the examples in the article acceptable within Wikipedia's policy?" Regardless of our individual beliefs, that question can be litigated (and ideally resolved) by the noticeboard.

ARoseThorn (talk) 04:26, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

ARoseThorn I'll respond here!

• The protesters' stated goal was to turn Wall Street into Tahrir Square, but too many Americans do have jobs to make an Arab-Spring-style uprising even possible. is evidence of deligimization, but in the thread "Dispute over long quotes" you said it was an example of no public support without bringing up delegitimization; this implies disagreement with your past self on your exact analysis, which to me is evidence against the claim that your analysis is common sense – but perhaps you just forgot to mention it or made a typo.
  • That's a fair point, and I see why it looks this way, but I think the reason behind my inconsistency was because there is so much overlap between different aspects of the protest paradigm. Saying there's no public support implies delegitimization by nature, for instance, even though "no public support" and "delegitimization" are both spoken about as if they're separate aspects of the protest paradigm without any explicit connection between them.
• I think that simply saying "this text is an example of the protest paradigm" isn't useful even if it is acceptable under Wikipedia policy; the only way for a reader to get anything out of it is by parsing the large chunks of text in the footnotes and comparing line-by-line to the guidelines laid out earlier in the article. To improve comprehensibility, I would want the analysis you gave above to be included in the article.
  • I 100% agree, which is why it initially had text chunks in the article before other good faith editors came in and told me this was harmful to the article/too verbose, and I wasn't able to successfully defend my initial decision to keep long text chunks in the article without footnoting them. Here's that discussion above. Happy to relitigate this issue though because we're in agreement this would largely improve the article. But yes first figuring out which paragraphs are/aren't OR based on a third opinion would probably be wise to narrow the scope of this discussion so we don't redundantly debate including content that will later be removed.
• I'll add our talk discussion to the 3O page so we can see what others think regarding our disagreement about where the OR threshold is in this scenario!

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request (Disagreement regarding whether inclusion of text as an example of the protest paradigm constitutes an WP:OR violation or whether it is obvious enough that we are allowed to include it using editorial discretion per WP:NOTCOM and WP:SKYBLUE):

I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on Protest paradigm and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

Hello @ARoseThorn and @Alexandraaaacs1989! I have read through the thread, and my interpretation tends toward viewing the usage of the primary source articles as original research. As such, I think that such text should be used in conjunction with reliable secondary sources interpreting the text as examples of the protest paradigm. This is my reasoning: First, it seems to be agreed that asserting that any article follows any paradigm requires analysis or interpretation of the article, and that the dispute is primarily over the obviousness of the interpretation. Second, it seems to be agreed that per WP:OR, Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation and Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source. Third, WP:BLUE appears to be discussing examples that are extremely obvious or essentially without dispute. As per WP:BLUE: Since all material that is either challenged or likely to be challenged must be cited, if someone else is already challenging material as false or misleading, then it needs an inline citation and especially: consider that something that may be obvious to you may not be obvious to them. While the content here is not necessarily challenged as in and of itself false or inaccurate, the material is being used to make an interpretive claim about the reporting of certain news outlets. The fact that there is a dispute and that reasonable minds can reach different conclusions about rhetorical elements of the sources seems to be enough to reach the status of a challenge, and/or casts doubt on the obviousness of the interpretive claims. It is not necessarily obvious in many of these quotes that the paradigm can be applied. It seems better left to secondary source scholarship when applying a framework to primary source text, and I think WP:VOICE is informative here: Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice, for example the sky is blue not [name of source] believes the sky is blue. Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion, although it is helpful to add a reference link to the source in support of verifiability. Fourth, similarly under WP:NOTCOM: If something is obvious to anyone who reads and understands the sources that are supposed to support it, then it's not SYNTH. The examples cited in WP:NOTCOM use two undisputed facts (that the moon and sun have certain sizes) to draw an obvious conclusion (that the sun is relatively large and the moon is relatively small). Of course, not all obvious interpretations involve the exact structure of WP:BUNDLING, but it seems that the interpretation must be so obvious as to be essentially futile to dispute. To elaborate, it does not seem clear-cut that The protesters' stated goal was to turn Wall Street into Tahrir Square, but too many Americans do have jobs to make an Arab-Spring-style uprising even possible is delegitimizing or claims no public support in an obvious or common sense way. While many might potentially agree, these are political issues involving a primary source’s viewpoint regarding a protest movement. Applying a framework from a secondary source to the text of such a primary source expresses a Wikipedia editor's opinion regarding the source and its applicability to the framework, which is original analysis and would seem to violate WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. It is making a claim in the same way a sociologist or historian might, it is an inherently original analysis which would require a secondary source. Even when the statement from the primary source that It's hard to take a protest fully seriously when it looks more like a circus seems to fit the carnival trope in the paradigm extremely closely, and it seems many might agree with the interpretation, WP:NOTCOM explicitly cautions that: Beware however of using vague concepts defined in one source to interpret statements in another source. Many concepts in social sciences have vague definitions. If I write an article on a social science concept defined in secondary sources, I would not have the expertise to apply the concept to a primary source as an example for the article, even if it seems obvious to me. Applying a definition I cite is an analytic interpretation, it is a step beyond merely being obvious to anyone who reads and understands the sources that are supposed to support the application. This is especially true of a definition in sociology or media studies, as opposed to the metrics provided by quantitative natural sciences. Fifth, while the statement that: some level of interpretation is always necessary in every article, and this can be the case without committing any OR violations. Summarizing material involves interpreting the original words to create a new way of explaining your interpretation of what you read is true, summarization does not make a novel claim from existing sources, unlike applying a definition to a novel case. This is also outlined under WP:WINOR. Separately, there is some discussion of reviewing the primary source articles on a case-by-case basis. The thread analyzes portions of one block quote of one of the articles, and this seems to result in a protracted dispute over the obviousness or common sense applicability of the paradigm. I think this in and of itself demonstrates that WP:BLUE and WP:NOTCOM are unlikely to apply, and that original research is being done through the analysis of primary sources using the definitions of the cited secondary sources, which would seem to be original research in any similar case. As an aside to this point, WP:DUE does not seem to necessitate that any particular source be included. The statement that some of the articles included that were not explicitly connected by secondary sourcing to the protest paradigm are WP:DUE for inclusion seems unrelated to the policy, which states that: Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Here, I think a primary source could not be used as a reliable source for an example supporting a viewpoint on the paradigm under due weight because the source does not claim a viewpoint on the paradigm. Please feel free to disagree or stipulate or note any misunderstandings I may have, this is my reading of the relative applicability of OR. Jacob Rampino (talk) 01:32, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi Jacob, thank you very much for your 3O and for your in-depth analysis of our disagreement. I think you articulated your points very well, as did Rose throughout this disagreement. I'm happy to respect the result of this 3O - that ARoseThorn has the correct position here and I have the wrong one, and that what I have argued deserves inclusion in the article constitutes an OR violation.

I'm very preoccupied with another article I've been building at the moment, so what I'm going to do is add a TODO note to my user page so I don't forget to circle back to this discussion and make changes that will reflect the outcome of this discussion as soon as I have time. If anyone would like to make these changes sooner on their own, they are welcome to do so. The changes this would include, as the outcome of the 3O, will include:

• Deleting examples of the protest paradigm that do not have explicit sourcing saying they are an example of the protest paradigm, for instance:
  • WABC-TV (ABC News) invoked the protest paradigm in an article titled "325 arrested after Pro-Palestinian protesters block major bridges, Holland Tunnel," disproportionately quoting city officials who delegitimized protester goals, emphasizing charges brought against protesters, and characterizing the protests in the context of the Israel fighting Hamas rather than mentioning criticisms actually held by the protesters.
• And, as Rose and I briefly discussed as a possible next step, using the {{quote}} template to expand some of the existing examples of the protest paradigm that are corroborated by sources to not simply hide their quotes in footnotes. We could ping Diana and Sphlitbrick from the above discussion and make consensus-building efforts if we decide to go about this, and if necessary, we could start an RfC to break the tie (even though it's WP:NOTAVOTE we're roughly split evenly on consensus for quote expansion).

Once I make it back, I will likely do another sweep of the literature to see if there's any other articles out there accused of engaging in the protest paradigm by RS and get those added as well. Take care all, I'll add this to my TODO page. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:04, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

@ARoseThorn I have removed the "specific examples" paragraphs. Let me know if there's any remaining issues! Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:43, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

@Alexandraaaacs1989 Thank you for making the changes :) ARoseThorn (talk) 17:41, 25 July 2026 (UTC)